What To Do With Daylight
by Celeste Goodchild
Summary: In this alternate universe fic picking up from the episode with the artist's rainbow crystal, Usagi has a Bright Idea and opens a can of worms on an unsuspecting Zoisite. CHAPTER TEN ADDED ZOMG!
1. The Worst Laid Plans

Author's Notes: This fic was inspired by reading about the new live action series, _Pretty Guardian Sailormoon_. I haven't watched the anime in years, but the live action show sure got me thinking about it. In the end, I thought I needed to do some penance for all the terrible fanfic I wrote about the anime when I was still in high school, and this is what resulted. 

This is a multi-part "alternate universe" fic which begins in the episode involving the nijizuishou (rainbow crystal) from the artist. It was inspired by the storyline of the live action show but is firmly set in the universe described by the anime. It is probably best described as a gen fic even though it was originally intended as something focused on the Zoisite/Kunzite relationship. It seems to have moved beyond that, however, and now everyone gets to play a decent part.

I dedicate this to Narie the Waitress, who is so kindly beta-ing this for me with some of my flist at livejournal. It is entirely her fault that this is being written, considering the fact that she (a) encouraged it and (b) supplied me with the first sixteen episodes of the live action series and just cemented my desire to write it.

I hope the journey is to your liking, nariechan, and to the rest of you – I hope much the same thing. I'd love feedbackif you could spare some for a poor writer atoning for her many sins as a fanfic writer in the past.

What To Do With Daylight

Part One: The Worst Laid Plans

_In which Rei finds a nijizuishou ~ Usagi mourns her non-existent street-smarts ~ Mako is forced to play idea wall ~ Kunzite and Zoisite spend "quality" time together and ~ an artist is the catalyst for a very bizarre reaction indeed._

"It's so pretty," she breathed, voice oddly muted as she held the little yellow crystal up to the sun. Twisting it like a kaleidoscope made the light dance over its facets, the jewel almost seeming to catch alight in her hands.

Rei looked up from where she was absently sweeping one of the shrine's deckings, and frowned to see how entranced Usagi still was by the single nijizuishou they, the senshi, had actually managed to collect. "Usagi, can you just give it back to Ami already?"

"She's okay," Ami said in a mild voice, slipping as always into the role of the mediator without even trying. She didn't even bother to look up from where her fingers were moving quickly over the keys of her palm-sized computer, though she did reach up to adjust her glasses. "I don't mind."

"But what if I mind?"

"Hey, Rei," Mako said, looking up from where she was watching the dizzying array of symbols flash across Ami's screen with no comprehension whatsoever, "no need to panic, right? We're all right here if something really bad happens, but it's not like Usagi-chan's going to try to _eat_ it, or something."

"Oh, I don't know," Rei said moodily as she began to sweep the deck a little more viciously.

Usagi looked over at last to the brewing argument she'd had an unwitting hand in creating, and blinked. "Well, I wouldn't be feeling so hungry if a certain bad host would offer her guests anything to eat!"

"You already ate all the odango in the house, Usagi!"

"Girls?" Luna interrupted at last, also dragging her eyes away from what Ami was doing. Unlike Mako, the black moon-cat had at least looked a little like she was following the calculations of the genius Senshi. "Please, can we not argue like cats and dogs? There's no need for it – we need to stand united now." And she couldn't help but watch Rei's face carefully for a reaction; it was not easy to forget the way she had so passionately wanted not a week beforehand to replace Usagi as their leader.

_And while she probably does have a very good point_, the moon-cat thought uneasily, _I can't say that I…would feel **right** about having anyone but Usagi-chan as leader, cry-baby or no._

"I agree," spoke Ami quietly, pausing in her work and blinking owlishly behind her rarely-worn glasses. "We're having enough problems as it is with the Dark Kingdom, without giving them the advantage by being unable to work together."

"But that's the problem, can't you see?" Rei said, dropping the broom with a clatter. Pushing her hair back with one tired hand, she began pacing erratically; some might have taken her attitude as plain anger, but her friends could see the true frustration underwriting each and every movement she made. "We're giving them too many advantages as it is! I mean, we only have one of these crystals, and you're letting Usagi run around with it--"

"What's wrong with me just holding it?" Usagi asked, wounded. "And…and I can look after it okay! I mean, Ami-chan's probably better to look after it because Urawa-kun practically _gave_ it to her, which was so sweet and actually, Ami-chan, has he called you yet?" The crystal in her hand practically forgotten, Usagi sidled over to her more reserved friend and jabbed her elbow into the girl's side with a mischievous grin. "C'mon, spill! You're blushing!"

"You see, this is the problem!" Rei said, appealing more to the moon-cat than to the other two Senshi present. "She's distracted by anything and everything, and I just…we can't keep losing the nijizuishou to the Dark Kingdom, Luna. It's going to be hard enough to get ONE from them, let alone four more!"

"Maybe Tuxedo Kamen-sama will get more," Usagi said brightly, looking away from Ami (who was hanging her head low and desperately trying to command her blush away with little success). "And he'll help us get the others, right?"

"Usagi," and Rei was holding her head like it hurt. "We…Tuxedo Kamen-sama…"

"Why I am I the only one who trusts him?" Usagi asked suddenly, setting the nijizuishou down upon the wooden floor beside her and standing up. Emotion suffused her skin with rich blood, her eyes beginning to sparkle with either frustration or tears. "I know…I know he's acting weird, but – I thought you liked him too, Rei-chan! Why don't you trust him?"

Rei reached down to pick up her broom, looking oddly like a little old lady in the gesture. She did not meet Usagi's eyes when she spoke. "Because my love isn't blind, Usagi."

The words hit her hard; Usagi stared at her in shock, blue eyes wide. "…you really love him, Rei-chan?"

"Guys, come on," Mako said suddenly, made uneasy by the deepening emotion of the argument. Pushing back her bangs from her forehead in a nervous gesture, she said simply and directly: "Can we just stop it, please? It's hard for all of us, not knowing who to trust or where the enemy's going to come from next, but…Rei, really, _come__ on_. Luna's orders were to have Usagi-chan be our leader, and unless some big disaster happens, I am not going to help you make her change them."

"So you'd rather wait for the disaster than try to avert it? Optimist, aren't you?" And although her words were bitter, the weariness of them took away much of the edge. "Why do you guys have to have everything _proven_ to you first? Why wait for something to break before you fix it?"

"Because," Mako said stubbornly, "how else would we know that it was actually broken?"

There was silence a moment in the group; Usagi was watching the arguing girls with wide eyes, lightly tinged with something approaching fear. Luna only frowned in silent cat fashion, while Ami apparently tried to pretend it was not happening by burying herself in her work. 

The wind chimes hanging a few feet away chimed gently in the rising breeze of the late afternoon; the sound seemed to jolt Rei into action. Tossing back her long dark hair, she firmed up her grip about the broom and tightened her lips until they were nearly as white as her knuckles.

"Excuse me," she said stiffly. "I think I can hear grandfather calling me."

The look of confusion that crossed Mako's face then might have been priceless under happier circumstances. "I don't hear--"

"I do," Rei interrupted, voice low but firm. Turning about as elegantly as any dancer in her miko garb, Rei padded off down the outdoor hallway, opened a screen, and disappeared into the shrine.

The silence was heavy over the remaining Senshi and Luna, the chimes once again the only sound they could hear. They sounded wrongly cheerful in light of what had just happened, the soft tinkling music nearly obscene. 

"…why doesn't she want me to be leader?" asked Usagi miserably, speaking up at last as her hands twined together nervously in her lap. "I mean…I can do it! I don't always want to, but…I don't want to give up, either. It's hard but I'm supposed to do it, right? And…I don't want Tuxedo Kamen-sama to think I'm a wimp or a baby."

"I'm sure he doesn't, Usagi-chan," Luna said, sounding as tired as Rei had done, though without the anger colouring the words in darker shades of grey. "But you have to realise that this is hard for her. She'd feel better if she could take control, I think." She paused, wondering to herself how well Usagi would understand it. It wasn't that she was a stupid girl, not in the ways that really counted, but sometimes Luna just wished that Usagi would _think_ a little more about things. "She's always had to be in control of everything in her life up until now…I think she feels a little lost, having to give even some of that control away."

Usagi was shaking her head, ponytails flying wildly about her heart-shaped face as she did so. "But she can trust me! She really can!"

Luna looked away; sometimes Usagi's ephemeral earnestness hurt her heart more deeply than she cared to admit. "You need to prove that to her, Usagi-chan," she murmured, voice firm enough even in its kindness to indicate that this subject of conversation was now closed. Clearing her throat as Usagi moved to speak again, she said in a slightly louder voice than usual: "How is that programme coming along, Ami-chan?"

"Not good," she said with a sigh, finally removing her glasses and actively participating in the conversation again. One tired hand reached for her school-case; so exhausted was she that it actually took two tries before she got a good grip on it and drew it closer. "I don't think I can take the seeking-code from the moon-stick and broaden the range with my computer's scanners. I really can't work out how the moon-stick reacts to the nijizuishou in the first place. I should be able to, but I just…" All listening were startled to hear how close to tears Ami was; Mako scooted closer to her and draped a supporting arm about her shoulders.

"Ami-chan, it's okay, really," Mako assured her, "you can just keep trying."

Ami sighed, ducked away from the contact to set about putting her glasses and her computer away in her bag. "I just don't know if it would do any good."

"No reason to give up though, is it?" Mako said cheerfully, with a supportive slap to Ami's back that very nearly sent her (and her loaded school-case) flying.

"I guess not," she said with a faint affectionate look at her newest friend. Grasping her precious case to her chest, Ami said almost wryly: "Senshi never give up, right?" 

"Right!" Mako said triumphantly, leaping to her feet in a truly heroic fashion. "So let's go do something to cheer ourselves up…arcade, anyone?"

Ami frowned, looked to her bag and thought of all the academic delights that it contained. "…I have homework I should do."

Mako put her hands on her hips, gave the blue-haired girl a disapproving look. "Ami-chan, I said something to cheer up with…oh, wait," her voice trailed off thoughtfully, but the glint in her eyes was deeply amused. "That would cheer YOU right up, wouldn't it?"

With a small smile, Ami admitted: "Yes, I guess it would."

Grabbing Usagi's hand and pulling the blonde to her feet, Mako said firmly: "Well, Usagi-chan and me are going to play some _Sailor V_."

"You guys really should do some study, we have tests coming up. I could help you, you know I'd be happy to," Ami offered, still seated with her books on the edge of the wooden veranda running about each of the shrine's building.

"We're lost causes!" announced Mako grandly, and then laughed. "We're off to dust some youma!" And with that said, Usagi looking slightly happier with the promise of gaming ahead, Mako made to drag the blonde away to the arcade and the delicious distraction of Motoki.

"Oh, Usagi-chan!" Ami said suddenly; when the two girls stopped, Ami reached into her bag and ruffled through the too-scholarly contents. "Your moon-stick," she said, holding out the light pink object to Usagi. "I shouldn't forget to give it back."

Usagi took it, blinked, and then realised that she had given it to Ami earlier so that the girl could scan and examine it as a part of her current project. "…thanks, Ami-chan! I would've forgotten all about it!"

"Maybe," Ami said with a smile, but there was something in her eyes that still looked a little troubled. "Oh, and may I have the nijizuishou?"

"What?" Usagi asked, with another wide-eyed blink. The confusion cleared momentarily, and she laughed again. "Oh, right! …good thing Rei-chan isn't here to see this…I…oh."

Watching the girl stop dead as she looked at the empty space where she had been sitting, Ami took a few moments to say the dreaded words. "Usagi-chan, where is it?"

"I…I set it down right here…I think…oh no." Usagi looked up, eyes wide with fear rather than confusion this time. "Maybe it rolled under the veranda…oh, no, Ami-chan, I'm so sorry!"

"Come on, we have to find it quick!" Mako said, and all three girls immediately began scrambling about the small area to see how far it had gotten. Luna also pitched in, though there was only so much one small moon-cat could do to help hunt for a small crystal in a small Shinto shrine. 

"Looking for something?"

Three dusty faces and one equally dusty cat looked up to see Rei standing above them; her hands were out-stretched, one small yellow crystal cradled in the pale palms. Though an eyebrow was raised in what appeared to be annoyance, her obvious exhaustion blunted it and just made her look old. 

Usagi straightened, brushed dust from her uniform as she bit her lip. Her words wobbled as much as her lower lip did as she met that unreadable gaze. "Rei-chan, I'm sorry!"

"You're always sorry, Usagi." No, there was no anger at all in her voice now. Rei just appeared tired, more tired than any girl her age should truly have to be. "I'm going to go meditate a little. You guys can stay here if you want, but I could be a while."

Mako's voice was less animated now, her tall form drooping ever so slightly. Making no attempt to brush the dust from her own uniform, she just said: "We were going to go, anyway."

"I'll see you tomorrow then, maybe," Rei said quietly, and bowed her head slightly to them before turning and walking away again. The quiet opening and shutting of the screens was the only sound she made as she disappeared completely from sight. The wind chimes swung again in the breeze, this time almost sounding like the sound of distant voices laughing. 

"I'll make her believe in me." Usagi's words were quiet, but forceful in only the way she could make them. "I don't know how. But I will. I swear!"

Neither of the girls nor the moon-cat responded. In fact no-one spoke as they all left the grounds of the shrine together. On the street outside, Mako and Usagi turned towards the arcade, Luna and Ami towards the library. They raised hands (and paw) in farewell, and went their separate ways to think about something else, if only for a brief moment in time. 

*****

"I swear I won't allow this to happen again, Kunzite-sama."

Kunzite nodded, but his eyes were still hard and shuttered. "You need to realise that they're not just little girls in little skirts, Zoisite,"

The younger of the two looked away, unable to meet that cool gaze for long when it was directed at him. He instead looked to the window of Kunzite's study, to the razed land outside; it all seemed to glow and writhe in the intermittent flashes of lightning from what passed for sky here. "You never took them seriously when Jadeite was running around like a blind fool after them!"

"I never saw a reason to, then," the commanding note that crept into his voice all but forcing Zoisite to turn about and look straight at him. "I know now I should have paid more attention to what their potential was rather than focusing on Jadeite's tendencies towards both melodrama and distraction. They're more than I realised, and I should not have ever thought otherwise."

"Kunzite-sama--"

The interruption was as sharp as the movement of the hand that raised to stop his words dead. "How are your plans for the collection of the next nijizuishou progressing?"

Zoisite looked for a moment like he wished deeply to challenge Kunzite's changing of the subject, but he ducked his eyes in deference. "I will present myself to Beryl in the morning," he said, tone becoming somewhat more formal and rigid with each spoken word. "I know who the woman is. I will collect the nijizuishou, and then I will make sure that the youma returns to us."

Kunzite frowned almost imperceptibly. "It is best to focus on the primary goal, Zoisite."

That struck a nerve; he looked up with eyes beginning to snap with green fire, mouth narrowing into a tight rosebud of distaste. "I can do both!"

"I don't doubt that you can," Kunzite said impassively, his icy emotions yet to be even remotely touched by the fire burning before him, "but those little girls have proved that Lady Luck is at least on their side, if not totally in league with them."

"I don't need false luck," Zoisite muttered, turning away from Kunzite even though he knew it was hardly protocol to do so. Beginning to pace like a caged panther, his entire body trembling with pent-up frustration and anger, he said nearly rudely: "I can make my own luck!" 

"Consider your options, Zoisite," Kunzite said in the didactic tone of a teacher, unmoved by the display before him. Though Zoisite was a creature of beauty greatly enhanced by passion – whether negative or positive – Kunzite was able to shut off his attraction to the magnificence of the younger shitennou when he deemed it necessary. Or at least, for a time he knew he was capable of doing so. "If you leave the youma to the Senshi, they are less able to challenge you for the nijizuishou. If it is possible for you to leave with the youma, do so – but given their tendency to appear fortuitously at all scenes, it may be to your advantage to let it go. Allow the youma to distract them while you retreat with the true goal."

"I don't retreat without my mission objectives!" Zoisite all but snarled, whipping about to face his superior with his arms crossed fiercely over his chest.

Raising an eyebrow, Kunzite only watched the younger shitennou evenly until he lowered his gaze, looked slightly more contrite. "Zoisite," he said in a calm tone, "you have to remember what the true mission objective is. You are to collect the nijizuishou. Remember that before you next attempt to challenge Kamen."

"He has what's mine!" Zoisite couldn't help exploding, even under the watchful gaze of a man who never wore his heart upon his sleeve in such a fashion as did Zoisite himself.

"What is Beryl's," he corrected coolly, with no discernible emotion towards the queen obvious in his smooth voice. "I will deal with Kamen when the time comes."

The relief and smug joy that crossed Zoisite's face at the thought of Kunzite crushing the masked fool was almost immediately replaced by the burn of impatience. "Why can't you do it now?"

"Patience obviously can not be taught to some, even with the finest of teachers." Zoisite's mouth twisted as he processed this, but the glitter of his eyes made it obvious that the comment had hurt. Kunzite acknowledged nothing, continued only with: "There is no need to challenge him now over what he holds, Zoisite. We will wait until all the nijizuishou have been revealed."

Zoisite's eyes darkened now, and he looked a beat away from stamping a foot upon the floor. "You think I'll lose more of them to those short-skirted fools? And that idiot in a bad top hat?!"

"Patience," he repeated with an icy note of reprimand creeping at last into his voice, "and calm are virtues you should at least attempt to learn, Zoisite."

Zoisite stared at the floor for a moment, as was his habit when Kunzite bothered to actually chastise him. There was generally only one way in which he would respond to such treatment, and Kunzite did not have to wait long for the expected comeback. 

Pulling his long ponytail over his shoulder so that he could tangle gloved fingers in the dark gold strands, Zoisite stepped closer to the standing man. Looking up at the taller shitennou from beneath too-long eyelashes, he all but purred: "But there's really not much need for…_virtue_…around here, is there?" He paused, noted no real disapproval from the more powerful of the two, stepped closer so that they stood bare millimetres apart. Standing as near as this meant he could feel their auras beginning to intertwine, their sustaining energies starting to mingle and amplify. "Kunzite-sama?" he breathed, lips slightly parted as he tilted his head up towards Kunzite's.

"In some regards, perhaps you are right," Kunzite said, showing no reaction to the close proximity of Zoisite even though the blonde was already beginning to breathe faster, in shallower gasps. "But I am not wrong in this."

"You're never wrong, Kunzite-sama," Zoisite said softly, reaching up with his arms to twine them about his neck, to tangle his fingers in silver-gilt hair. "Not really."

"Perhaps not," Kunzite said, voice softer than he usually allowed it to become. "But enough talk. You need to rest."

Zoisite grinned at this, the expression feral and hungry. "Rest or _rest_, Kunzite-sama?"

"Both." His voice was still cool, but Zoisite could see the telltale signs of arousal in his eyes, could feel the heat rising in his body even though the heavy material of his uniform. "Come."

"You know I will," Zoisite laughed abruptly, pushing himself so suddenly and firmly against the lean body of his companion that he very nearly made the icy man gasp aloud. "_Several_ times, with you involved."

Kunzite made no reply, but Zoisite found it easy to pretend that he had seen that small smirk on the cool man's features as he gathered him up to kiss him near-brutally, to carry him to a place better designed for such activities.

*****

"I've got it!"

"I haven't," Mako said gloomily, letting go of the controller. "That was the last of my change, too. Stupid game!"

"No, not that," Usagi said, so excited she let the controller of her own game go, oblivious to the way this left the pixellated Sailor V vulnerable to attack by seemingly every ugly creature in the game. "How to make Rei-chan realise I should be leader!"

"Well, best not to leave the nijizuishou lying around, right?" she said, but kindly. "Usagi-chan, you shouldn't get so worked up about it. Like Luna said, Rei's just worried about what's going to happen…I mean, we all are, right? I think she just deals with it by…wanting to fix everything by herself. But she can't, and that drives her crazy."

"But what if I fix it for her?" Usagi asked eagerly.

"Usagi-chan, you're the leader, really, but even you can't do it all by yourself. Sailor Senshi stick together, right?" With that, Mako held her hand up for a high five.

Usagi slapped it, but distractedly; in fact she missed the hand totally but didn't actually appear to notice. "Maybe she'll be happier if we get all the nijizuishou really soon, you think?"

Mako couldn't help but laugh, leaning back against the game machine and shaking her head. "I think we'd all be happier, Usagi-chan. But it's not so easy…I mean, even Ami-chan can't get that little computer of hers to find them any earlier than your moon-stick--"

"Like Zoisite can." Usagi's eyes were glimmering. "But what if we could get Zoisite to find them for us?"

Mako blinked, and then shook her head. "…Usagi-chan, I shouldn't have let you eat so many ice-creams." With the GAME OVER signal flashing on Usagi's screen as well as her own now, Mako led the blonde girl from the arcade, flipping what she considered a funky wave at Motoki as they passed. 

Usagi was so distracted by her grand idea that she didn't even notice Motoki calling goodbye to them both – a sure sign of trouble, Mako knew. "No, I'm really serious!" she protested, tugging at Mako's sleeve. "I mean…the moon-stick, it heals, right?"

Mako stopped, folded her arms across her chest and looked incredulously at Usagi. The blonde's face was earnest in the dim lighting from the convenience store that they stood before, enhanced further by the streetlamp they had stopped beneath. "…you're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?"

"Probably," Usagi said, with a smile that was like radiant sunshine. Clasping her hands together before her chest, almost in something approaching thankful prayer, Usagi said happily: "But I just don't know why I've never thought of it before!"

Mako had to wince at the sight of the enthusiasm all but leaping off Usagi like lemmings off a cliff. "Probably because it's not a great idea, Usagi-chan?" she said, trying her hardest to sound reasonable but kind.

"But it is!" she said, apparently oblivious to Mako's understandable trepidation. "I mean…well…you never saw Nephrite, the shitennou before Zoisite, but…there was good in him, Mako-chan. Real good!" And she started waving her arms for emphasis, drawing some amused looks from a couple of passers-by. Usagi was too embroiled in her fantastic idea, however, to spare them even a grin. "It…he…when he died, he was so sad, and it made Naru-chan so sad, and I kind of thought about it when we met that priest with Naru-chan, but…Mako-chan! The moon-stick heals the carriers, right? So why wouldn't it work with Zoisite?"

Mako – who understood perfectly well that she was not the best one to go about answering questions of this sort – nevertheless tried to put as much confident authority into her voice as she could. She wasn't sure that it was working, but then Usagi never really listened to those who actually _did_ know better anyway. "Usagi-chan, the carriers are human. I bet if you tried it with Zoisite, you'd dust him, the way Rei told me you guys used to do with all the youma before them."

"I think it'd work," Usagi said stubbornly. "Nephrite really liked Naru-chan, in the end. I think there's a little human in them, or something like it. I want to try!"

"Usagi-chan…" Mako sighed, looking up to the sky briefly only to see the crescent moon hanging strong in the sky.

Crestfallen at last, Usagi followed Mako's gaze, caught the moon. The shimmering scythe in the sky, however, served to remind her of the object firmly in her school bag. Firming her chin, she nodded suddenly at nothing in particular. "I'm gonna ask Ami-chan."

_Well, I never thought I'd stop her, but I guess this is something. I only hope she gets to Ami-chan before Zoisite gets to the next carrier…_ Mako thought, hating how helpless she felt. "You'd better," she said aloud, trying to smile. "She'd know more about it than me."

Though Mako was a strong girl, even she had trouble holding up to surprise glomps from Usagi. "But you're still great, Mako-chan!" Usagi grinned as they both found themselves sprawled across the pavement.

"Yeah, yeah," Mako said, good-naturedly picking herself up from the ground and offering Usagi a hand. "Hey, want to come over for dinner? It gets a little…well, lonely sometimes, and you know I always cook enough for at least five."

"Only five?" Doubt crossed Usagi's lovely little face, and made Mako laugh out loud.

"All right, just for you – I'll cook for ten, okay?"

"Wai!" she proclaimed, clapping hands together excitedly. Shaking her head, Mako began to walk beside the all-but-skipping Usagi, trying to push the conversation out of her head. No point in worrying about it now, after all… she could only hope Usagi would forget this idea before she even thought to bring it up with Ami.

*****

Usagi _hated _feeling angry. Really hated it. But what Zoisite had just done…ruined the life of this talented artist, turning her into this _thing_ just for a crystal he wanted to use to destroy the world…well. It really made her angry.

But when she was angry, she tended to forget that these "people" were real, too. It wasn't until she was in the form of Sailor Moon, warrior of love and justice, the moon-stick and its power but a thought away, that she remembered her promise of only the day before.

…I'll give Rei-chan a reason to really believe in me! And the others, too…we all deserve to be happy, and we're never going to be normal girls if we have to fight ugly monsters all the time!

Zoisite as always looked completely unimpressed by the speech Sailor Moon gave him, but she had to admit he at least had an excuse this time. She was distracted by trying to calculate how quickly the others would arrive now she'd contacted them from Yumemi's house, and how on earth she was going to get around the youma standing with menacing calm at his side. 

_No way I'm gonna get him with the moon-stick, not with that youma between us_, she thought, and felt despair again at the thought of fighting her new friend. _But…I think I should try. Why not? I'm the leader, right? I have to do something to make things better for the Senshi, because I make things so hard as it is…_

"Hand over the nijizuishou!" she said, dismayed but not surprised when Zoisite simply commanded the winged youma to attack. However, even as she dodged the ridiculous – but still potentially lethal – rocks that the youma then tried to flatten her with, she had to admit that she was glad to see Zoisite was apparently happy to stay and watch the show.

…now I guess I just have to work on staying in one piece…oh, great, another huge one!

Shrieking as she suddenly realised she'd never get out of the way, Sailor Moon covered her head and fell heavily to her knees. However, before she became a so-called Sailor Pancake, she felt the air fill with energy. With her eyes closed she only heard the impact, then she was covered in a fine dust; she looked up in delight to see Jupiter grinning at her as she gave her leader a mock salute.

"Caught between a rock and a hard place eh, Sailor Moon?"

Sailor Moon's grin was wide enough that it should have really split her beaming face in two. "Sailor Jupiter!"

"That's right!" called a strong voice, and Mars and Mercury leapt down to stand on either side of the Jovan Senshi. All three struck a pose of their own, glaring at the shitennou and the youma beside him. "We are the Sailor Senshi, and that means – you're toast!"

"I doubt it," sniffed Zoisite without true concern, "but I hardly have time to play with you, little girl." The resultant smirk on his face, however, was quickly wiped clean away when he had to step sharply backward. This was simply to avoid his foot being impaled by the sharp tip of a thorny red rose that instead embedded itself into the concrete paving in front of him. 

The Senshi, the moon-cat and the shitennou all looked upward, all seeing exactly what they expected. Upon the wall stood the slender, solid form of Tuxedo Kamen; his cape swirled about his tall form as he held his cane in a manner of a sword and glared down at his quarry. "Prefer a man, would you Zoisite?"

"You have no idea," Zoisite snorted, tossing his hair back behind slender shoulders in a gesture that might have been flirtatious in a different time and place. "But you'd have to catch me first, Tuxedo Kamen. I always do enjoy playing hard to get." And without further warning, Zoisite gracefully spun away into the darkness, slipping into the complicated web of steel beams of the half-constructed building with all the grace of an Olympic gymnast. Tuxedo Kamen was hardly as acrobatic as he followed his lead, but was nevertheless right on his trail. 

"No!" Sailor Moon said, hands tightening into vain fists at her side. 

"Don't worry about the nijizuishou yet!" Luna said, and Sailor Moon turned to see that the youma that had once been Yumeno Yumemi was already attacking her friends. Snatching her moon-stick from seemingly the air itself, Sailor Moon readied the weapon, not bothering to correct Luna's assumption. Hardly time for that now, with Mercury only just avoiding the latest shower of "pebbles" created by the artist's peculiar feathers. "Now?"

Luna watched the youma stumble down to one knee under a combination attack of lightening and fire, and nodded. "Now!"

"Moon…Healing…Escalation!"

The light from the moon-stick encased the faltering youma easily; she stretched towards the sky as the healing power arched her back and spread through her body like cleansing fire. Within mere seconds, Yumeno Yumemi collapsed to the ground, barely conscious.

"She'll be okay, I think," Sailor Moon said while biting her lip, and then looked away. Light flashed on the other side of the construction site, and some hope filled her at the sight. "We have to help Tuxedo Kamen-sama!"

"Sailor Moon—!"

Mars's voice calling her back only spurred her on faster.

And, just maybe, help us too… 

She could feel the Senshi on her heels as she ducked and dodged through the beams. Sometimes she thought about how graceful and controlled she could be in her Senshi form, but mostly she tried not to. When she remembered she was supposed to be a klutz she tended to fall on her butt, warrior of love and justice or not. Still, she didn't pay a lot of heed to the others behind her. She hadn't had a chance to ask Ami about her theory, but it didn't seem to matter now. Opportunity had arisen, and she was going to take it. 

When she came upon the scene, she could clearly see that a duel was taking place for the nijizuishou stolen from Yumemi – and to her horror, it seemed Tuxedo Kamen was losing. Even as she watched him stumble, she saw Zoisite draw back an arm and release a deadly sharp blade of ice.

"ZOI!"

Without thinking, she pulled the tiara from her forehead and let fly. The ice shard shattered under the impact of the sparkling pseudo-frisbee; Tuxedo Kamen looked up to see her, her name falling from his lips in surprised gratitude.

"Sailor Moon!" he said, eyes locking onto hers and holding her heart momentarily still. _…oh, Tuxedo Kamen-sama, why can't you just be on our side without…_

The soft laugh of the shitennou broke the moment between the two, Tuxedo Kamen looking away first to his acquired nemesis. "Oh, two against one's hardly fair," Zoisite all but gloated as he took an elegant step backward, "so I think you'll forgive me if I bow out now."

Sailor Moon's eyes widened as she saw her chance slipping through her fingers like so much melted ice-cream. "Stop!" she shouted, knowing it was ineffectual but unable to not at least try.

It only made Zoisite laugh again, the sound as light as dry ice. "Like I said, no time to play with little girls, I'm afraid. I only like to play with the big boys, Sailor Moon." And with that said, he raised his hand in a mocking finger-wave and made as if to teleport.

"You can't go!" And the moon-stick was in her hand, the power already gathering about her form again. Still on his knees at her side, Tuxedo Kamen's eyes widened as he watched her grasp the glowing moon-stick tightly in gloved fingers. 

Jupiter, coming upon the scene with the others hot on her heels, stopped dead when she saw what was unfolding before them. Gasping, it was a moment before she shouted, already knowing she was too late: "Sailor Moon, don't!"

Mars frowned, made to step forward and cross to the beam upon which Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Kamen and Zoisite acted out their little drama. "What is that idiot doing—"

Time seemed to stand still as Sailor Moon arced the moon-stick over her head, stunning all – including Zoisite – into stillness. "Moon…Healing…ESCALATION!"

The shine of the healing power reached forward, grasping for darkness in order to make it light; though Zoisite made to teleport immediately the hold of the moon-stick's brightness locked down his power, held him immobile. The scream he let loose caused all the other Senshi to cover their ears, wincing deeply; a moment later they had to look away from the entire spectacle as the light grew as painful to look at as the sun itself. 

_…it's…he's too strong! He…I don't think…no! I have to do this!_ Even though she could feel seemingly all the energy in her body streaming out through her fingers, into the moon-stick and then into the writhing form some ten feet away, she only bit her lip and threw her heart into it as much as she could. Not even Tuxedo Kamen's voice beside her penetrated her concentration now, sweat beginning to bead across her brow.

"Sailor Moon, stop!"

Sailor Moon stubbornly would not let go of the moon-stick, pushed it forward even as she felt herself beginning to teeter. 

_Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to do this on a half-constructed building!_ she thought suddenly, and found herself wanting to laugh wildly until both she and the building collapsed from fatigue. The urge passed however when she saw Zoisite relax, felt him yield, felt her own energy fail as she herself dropped to her knees. The moon-stick clattered to the beam beside her, so hot it almost burnt her through her gloves. She did not let it go.

Mars was the first to leap to her side, almost shoving Tuxedo Kamen out of her way and off the building as she looked intently into Sailor Moon's wan face. "Oh my god, Sailor Moon, what did you DO? Are you okay?"

Sailor Moon stood, slightly unsteadily, and tried to move a bit closer. Only the firm hand of the recently appeared Jupiter stopped her from stumbling. Not ten feet away from her lay the precariously balanced body of the third shitennou, but…there was something…he no longer wore the uniform they had always seen him in before. No, now it was a lighter grey that was almost white, lined in light green and made of a finer material. A cape now was draped about slender shoulders, half-fallen over the edge of the beam and blowing slightly in the breeze. It was fastened with epaulets decorated with deeply glittering green gems and silver that caught the moonlight and made her blink. 

Standing himself with caution, Tuxedo Kamen looked at the fallen figure. Even though he still wore both top hat and mask, the furrowed brow and deep frown were easy enough to see to all the Senshi and Luna. "That…uniform…it…" he said, in a voice more hollow than an echo that had been replayed a thousand times already.

Sailor Moon stepped further forward cautiously, the cooling moon-stick dangling nearly uselessly from one hand. "…he's not dead, is he?" she asked, her balance still not quite good enough to warrant walking on the higher levels of a building under construction. "I didn't…kill him, did I?"

"It's not as if he would not have deserved it," Tuxedo Kamen said, voice cold enough to make Sailor Moon look back at him, startled and nearly afraid. Before either could say a word – or indeed, before the other Senshi could contribute to the conversation – the form groaned, shifted.

Sailor Moon was then moving oddly nimbly to his side before any of the girls could stop her. Tuxedo Kamen was right beside her, his hand all but brushing the small of her back when she near-stumbled. She looked up at him gratefully for a moment, and then dropped to her knees beside the fallen shitennou. 

"…I need Mercury to look at him…Tuxedo Kamen-sama, can you take his pulse?" 

But the dark-haired crusader was only staring at the body, gloved fingers tapping his own thigh impatiently as he apparently thought to himself. "I wonder where he put that nijizuishou--" he speculated aloud.

"Tuxedo Kamen-sama!" Aghast, Sailor Moon stared at him like he'd just stepped out of an alien spacecraft and announced he was the new lord and master of the universe. "He's hurt--"

It was Zoisite himself who interrupted them. Sitting up cautiously, groggily, the oddly dressed Dark Kingdom commander stared without comprehension at them both. "…stop being so loud…who…" He paused as he tried to focus his eyes on the girl with the too-loud voice, before they widened in shock. "Princess?"

Sailor Moon reared back from the stunned recognition in his eyes. "What?"

"Princess? What are you…who…" His attention had turned to the man at the "princess's" side. Before Tuxedo Kamen could so much as think to react, Zoisite reached for him with speed that should have been impossible given the state he was in. One hand – encased in a far more genteel glove than the military one he had just been wearing – pulled away the mask, and his confused eyes widened impossibly further. "My prince, why are you…" He looked away, down at his hands, and then with perplexity at the shimmering city of Tokyo below. "What is…my head…what is going on?"

With that gloved hand pressed to his temple still, Zoisite lapsed into total unconsciousness. Sailor Moon barely noticed the head that had all but fallen into her lap, however; she was instead fixated on the revealed face of the man beside her.

"…Chiba Mamoru?!"

Mars's gasp of shock was just as loud. "Mamoru-san?"

Tuxedo Kamen looked over at Mars sharply, away from the dazed face of Sailor Moon. Recognition crossed his face, lined it with shock and disbelief. "…Rei-san…?" Something more appeared to come to him; slowly he returned his gaze to Sailor Moon. For the first time, he truly looked at her, saw what was beneath the shimmering energy of the sailor-suited heroine. "_Odango_?"

"Don't call me that…oh." The usual retort died on her lips as she raised her hand to her mouth, felt her heart begin to skip like a hyper child being far too enthusiastic with a jump rope. "…Mamoru-san…you're…"

"Well, this is a right old mess," Luna observed, leaping across from where she had stood with the other girls. Shaking her small head, she gave Sailor Moon a disapproving look, then stared at the fallen king. "What are we going to do about this?"

But Sailor Moon was far more wrapped up in what Zoisite had just done, rather than what she had just done to Zoisite. "Mamoru-san? You're…Tuxedo Kamen?"

He looked away from her at last, pushing his fingers against his temple in a fashion oddly similar to what Zoisite had just done. "Yes," he said quietly, voice wondering and distant. "I'm getting a headache."

"Nothing like what he's got, I'd bet," Jupiter said rather pragmatically, seeming to take the revealed identities into her stride far better than any of the other humans about her. "Guys, we have to do something about this," she said, looking down at the fallen figure.

"…wait a second, something else is happening to him!" Mercury said sharply; right before all of their watching eyes the peculiar uniform shimmered, gently transformed into fashionable slacks and a shirt, though his hair stayed in the ponytail they had always seen him wear. Only Mars did not see it, her eyes still fixed on the revealed form of Tuxedo Kamen.

"…what was that?" Mercury whispered, fingers moving instinctively to activate her visor, to pull her palm computer from thin air.

Mars looked away from the unmasked man, briefly passed her eyes over Sailor Moon, and then focused on the inert form of Zoisite. Though she didn't say anything aloud, it looked like she was getting a headache on a par with Tuxedo Kamen's. "…so now what do we do?"

Sailor Moon looked at Tuxedo Kamen again, then at Jupiter. Tentatively, she said: "…Ami-chan, what do you think we should do?"

"…oh, so _now_ you ask her for advice?" Jupiter said tiredly, sounding oddly like Mars. However, when Sailor Moon looked slightly hurt at this proclamation, she did manage to smile back at her. "Well, better late than never, I guess."

"Yeah," said Sailor Moon quietly, and looked down again at the fallen man. "Better late than never, right."


	2. Complicated

* * *

What To Do With Daylight

Part Two: Complicated 

_In which migraines are catching/a truce is called between prince and fire/odango becomes the Word-Of-The-Day/Zoisite is classed AWOL and/Ami plays teacher's pet._

Mamoru passed a hand over his forehead, briefly closed his eyes. "I'm going to get myself some aspirin. Does anybody else want any?"

"Count me in," Rei said quietly from where she had seated herself on one of his two low couches. "My head is killing me."

Ami, seated cross-legged on the floor at Rei's feet, looked up from her small computer with a wry grin. "Mamoru-san, I would like one too."

Mamoru turned to the other two girls, raised an eyebrow. While Mako shook her head without a word, Usagi was too busy staring at the unconscious figure laid on the hastily set-out futon in the living room to realise that Mamoru was waiting for a reply.

"Odango atama?"

"Huh?" Usagi looked up, one hand absently tangling in the crescent-moon necklace she wore about her throat. "What?"

"Aspirin. Headache. Do you want one?"

The eyes were as two transparent as glass as she stared at Mamoru without any shred of understanding; her words were lightly confused as she spoke them. "What, a headache?"

Mamoru looked like his own headache was only getting much, much worse. "No, I mean…oh, forget it."

Watching him walk out, Usagi continued to show absolutely no comprehension of what he was talking about. The grip she had about her necklace tightened nervously, but her words were light. "Did I say something dumb?" she asked the room curiously, a touch of childish reluctance to her voice.

"…oh, what I could do with that question," Rei said, but barely loud enough for Usagi to hear. She did raise her voice to more audible levels with her next words, however. "How is he, anyway?"

Mako looked up from where she was staring at Zoisite, shrugged rather helplessly. "Well, he's still…asleep, or something, I guess."

"He looks reasonably fine from here," Ami remarked, still tapping away at her computer. She had given the man a cursory once-over with the assistance of Mamoru upon arrival, but had long since retreated to the familiarities of her little database. "All available data shows that he's just in…a kind of extended shock, brought on by the moon-stick. I mean, you've seen what happened to the others, right?"

"They were never out this long, though," Mako said thoughtfully; she pushed idly at one of Zoisite's hands with one finger, frowned at the coolness of his skin under her touch.

"But then Usagi-chan never used the stick on them for so long," Luna said quietly, and there was a certain touch of pride to the words. No-one had to ask why (except perhaps Usagi herself); they were all pretty clear on the fact that usually it took bribery of cake, cookies and Sailor V to get Usagi to do exactly what was asked of her in terms of Senshi duties.

"So why did you do it, Sailor Moon?" Mamoru asked quietly, coming in with a tray of glasses of water and a small bottle. After settling it down upon the low coffee table, he remained balanced on his heels and gave her a peculiar look. "Why would you _want_ to do something like that?"

Not responding to the question, she simply stuck her tongue out at him. When he raised an eyebrow she explained haughtily: "My _name's_ Usagi."

It was silent a moment as everyone processed what Usagi had just done – confirmed that all identities were revealed and all masks were to be put aside – and it was Mamoru who accepted this strange new status quo first. "…all right, odango atama." A small smile tugged his lips upward for a moment, and then faded again. "So why did you do it?"

"That's a good question." Rei echoed, setting down the now-empty glass she had used to wash down two paracetamol tablets Mamoru had so kindly supplied when he hadn't found the aspirin. 

Makoto sighed, catching the attention of all in the small room. Looking at her hands, she kept her eyes averted as she spoke. "It's kind of my fault."

"How's it your fault?" Adjusting the short dress she wore in her civilian form, Rei flicked her eyes back between Makoto and Usagi, stumped and not happy about it. "I mean, you sure didn't decide on a whim to use the moon-stick on a Dark Kingdom flunky!"

"…I should've stopped her," Makoto muttered.

Usagi leapt in there, as was her way; flushing cheeks and brightening eyes indicated that tears were perhaps only seconds away. "No, it's my fault. It was my idea." Mimicking Makoto, Usagi stared at her hands, tightened them into loose fists where they rested on her thighs. "I just…I thought it would…"

Rei expelled a long breath, exasperation and frustration mingling with the beginnings of genuine anger. "You thought it would _what_?" she demanded impatiently. 

"I thought it would make you like me!" she all but shouted, looking up now as the tears began to well up behind her blue eyes. "I thought it would make you believe in me, want me to be leader!"

"What, you don't want her as your leader?" Mamoru asked, pausing with his own glass of water halfway up to his lips.

The faint disapproval, combined with the startled note in his voice, had Rei looking down at her own hands with a frown. "…it's complicated, okay?"

Luna sighed, the sound oddly loud for a cat; everyone turned to look at her upon hearing it, as she had intended them to. "I think the complications just got worse."

Mamoru held up a hand, and all eyes now moved back to him. "All right. Let's…just calm down, sort through what we have, work something out." The look he sent the unconscious shitennou seemed to suggest that it was going to be a very long night indeed. 

Folding her arms over her chest, Rei then in turn drew the attention of all with her sharp: "I can see your point, but I'm not even entirely sure we should be here with you."

"Rei-chan!"

There was almost palpable hurt in her voice despite its strange strength, and though the words were directed at Mamoru the others could feel the plea behind them asking for their unfailing support in this. "We don't know if we can trust you, you know that," she explained, meeting his eyes evenly. "You've told us yourself that we can't always have faith in you standing by our side. I said we should take him to the shrine," and she pointed at Zoisite, "and I was out-voted for reasons I just can't understand! But what I do understand is this – you've been giving us reason after reason not to trust you. You want the nijizuishou for yourself. What stops you from using us to get them now?"

Mamoru put his empty glass down, levelled his gaze with hers. He met her words with silence, his jaw working as he considered what she said. His eventual reply was even and respectful. "I see your point, Rei-san."

Crossing her arms, she held her chin high and said: "You can call me Sailor Mars, thank you."

"Rei-chan!" It was Luna who tried to berate the fire Senshi that time. "I know how you feel, but--"

Holding up a hand once more, Mamoru interrupted the moon-cat with scarcely an apology; the gesture was in fact deeply regal and unsettling for all who saw it. Usagi felt flushed at the sight of Mamoru in such a princely guise, found herself having to look down at her hands again because it was too strange to watch Mamoru when he so closely resembled Tuxedo Kamen. 

"Please, let me say something," he said carefully. "I do want the nijizuishou, yes, but you don't know why I do."

"Then why don't you tell us?" Ami asked, the question soft and polite; it was then that Luna wondered why the most diplomatic member of their little Mickey Mouse operation couldn't get involved in such negotiations more often. After all, Ami would in theory get better results than bubble-headed Usagi, heavy-handed Mako or fire-tempered Rei.

Mamoru was quiet as he marshalled his thoughts and put them into some semblance of order. "I want them because I dream of a girl." His attention was elsewhere as his gaze wandered to the ranch slider that led out onto his small balcony; when Usagi followed his gaze she could see the waning moon hanging heavy in the sky. The light reflected in Mamoru's dark blue eyes, emphasised the love and longing written in a heavy hand there. "She tells me that the ginzuishou is the answer to all the questions I can not answer for myself."

Mako frowned, could not help but blurt out: "What questions?"

"Questions," he repeated, seemingly dazed. A second later he snapped his attention back to the group of girls in his apartment and asked abruptly: "But why do _you_ want it?"

Taken aback and confused by Mamoru's about face, Mako struggled to find a decent reply. "…because…because we need to get it?" A desperate glance to Ami yielded no better answer, leaving her with the moon-cat. "Luna?"

"It belongs to the princess we search for, the princess of the Moon Kingdom" Luna said, slowly and quietly to the man who was Tuxedo Kamen. The widened eyes of the girls about her she ignored for the time being. "The Senshi are her protectors, which is why we want it. I think…perhaps it will lead us to her, or her to us."

"The _Moon_ Princess?" Usagi squeaked, not allowing Mamoru to speak an answer to Luna's words. "You…you never said…!"

"The time was never right before now," Luna explained in a low voice, looking between the girls quietly. "Please understand I wanted to tell you before now, but…I am from the Moon myself. I was sent to awaken you girls so you could take up your roles as protectors of the princess, and stop this second awakening of the Dark Kingdom." She looked over to Mamoru. "I don't know how, but I think that you are also a part of all of this." 

"I am, even though I couldn't explain to you why. But there is one reason why I can accept working with you," Mamoru said, quietly. "I look for the princess, too."

"You do? Really?" Luna looked only momentarily surprised, and then there was an odd flicker of hope in her feline eyes. "…what do know about her?"

"Very little," he replied, dashing the hopes of a moon-cat who could only remember the barest facts about the girl she was supposed to find, supposed to protect. "But you can trust me, all of you."

"Can we?" Rei asked, quietly; she seemed to be taking the news of the fallen kingdom of the Moon more in her stride than the other girls.

"Yes, Sailor Mars. You can."

The violet eyes went blank and unreadable before she looked entirely away. "You can call me Rei," she said, voice hoarse, eyes now blocked by the fall of her long hair. 

Mamoru watched her for a moment, the atmosphere heavy; it lightened only when he looked to the slumbering blond on his living room floor and cleared his throat. "…so what do we do about him?"

Usagi shifted on the floor, tucked her slender legs underneath her as she continued to chew her lower lip. One slipper fell off in the movement, but she made no move to pick it up; she seemed far more fascinated by the beautiful man bare inches in front of her. "He called me a princess, you know," she said slowly, thinking out loud. "…and you a prince…" She looked up at him directly, face blank and confused. "What do you think he meant?"

"…you don't think he knows who the princess is, do you?" Ami asked, in one of her rare moments of active involvement in the arguments between the group.

Rei snorted, but there was nothing genuinely malicious in the sound. "Why would he? Surely if he did, he'd have caught her ages ago."

"Maybe." Ami's words were thoughtful, but she didn't respond to the questioning look that Rei gave her. Rather she just looked at Mamoru, a thousand questions in her eyes though she voiced just one of them. "We need to talk to him when he wakes up."

The words from Rei's direction were muttered, but it seemed like everyone heard them perfectly well. "_If_ he wakes up."

"He'll wake up, Rei-chan." Ami's quiet voice brooked no argument. "There's nothing to say that he won't."

She laughed suddenly, without scorn. Reaching forward, she refilled her glass and took a long sip before speaking. "Well, if he thinks Usagi's a princess, I don't think he's going to much use to us when he _does_ wake up."

"So, we just leave him here for now?" Mako broke in, seeing Usagi opening her mouth to complain and nipping that little problem right in the bud.

"No. I think we should take him back to the shrine." Rei's answer was firm as she gave Mamoru a decidedly pointed look. "Like we should have in the first place."

"And your grandfather wouldn't mind?" Usagi asked doubtfully, picking at one of the seams of her skirt and looking unconvinced. It wasn't surprising, given the fit she knew her own mother would have if she attempted to install a strange man in their chaotic little household. 

"He's used to collecting strays, especially when I talk him into it." Rei tossed her hair, the dark curtain shifting like the silken feathers of a raven's wing. "He'd be safer there."

"Perhaps," Mamoru granted thoughtfully, "but then perhaps we should at least wait until he wakes up and stop moving him around for now."

"That's why you should have listened to me in the first place!"

"Rei-chan, this apartment was closer," Ami cajoled from her safe vantage point, setting down her computer at last and pushing back her hair from her tired eyes. "It made more sense to bring him here, at least in the first instance. And he's right, we should let him recover a little more, and he'll do that faster if we don't keep moving him around."

There was only a brief moment in which Rei allowed herself to look momentarily betrayed; it quickly changed to a stubborn look that all the girls knew all too well. "Then I'm staying."

"What? You're going to stay at Mamoru-san's house?" Usagi all but squealed, and she would have fallen off her chair if she hadn't happened to be sitting on the floor already. "No way!"

"Usagi-san, it is my house," Mamoru pointed out, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards at the sight of Usagi's reaction. "Do you think you could let me issue the invitations, please?"

The little blonde crossed her arms and set her chin out. "Then I'm staying too," she announced, letting the world know that she was not the only stubborn-as-a-mule Senshi in this little group.

"Your mother would freak, Usagi," Rei pointed out, unable to keep the mild taunt out of her words as she said them.

Usagi's lips twisted as she pouted. "She doesn't have to know!"

"I'd tell her!" Rei shot back easily and swiftly.

Leaping to her feet, Usagi searched for words and couldn't find any as she glared at the still-seated Senshi of Mars. Both seemed completely oblivious to the rather embarrassed amusement with which Mamoru was watching this little exchange. "You…you…!"

"She's right, Usagi-chan," Luna pointed out in an effort to defuse the impending argument. "And besides, someone will have to stay here during school hours if he's not awake by then, and you certainly can't afford to miss school."

"Like she can!" Usagi complained, pointing a shaking and accusatory finger at Rei. 

"Well, _I_ didn't flunk my last kanji test." This fact was pointed out imperiously and very nearly resulted in smoke pouring out of Usagi's ears as her temper reached its boiling point.

"If anyone can afford to miss school, it's Ami-chan!" she announced, pointing now at the blinking Senshi of Mercury. "And you don't see her volunteering!"

Startled to be brought into the argument as a game piece, Ami's only vocal contribution was a rather intelligent: "Er…"

"Look, guys, come on," Mako said, earning a thankful look from Luna for being the most sensible of her charges, for once. "Let's chill out, okay? I mean, one of us has to stay with Mamoru-san, and I guess it might as well be Rei-chan." Ducking the pillow that Usagi artlessly tried to throw at her, Mako asked anxiously: "You think your grandfather would mind? Really?"

"No." Rei's tone was decisive and sure. "And he'll cover for me for school, too. He'll be nosy about it, of course, but I'll feed him some story about studying at Ami-chan's house or something."

Usagi looked like a tea kettle about to explode. "She can't stay here with him all by herself!"

Mako threw her hands up in apparent defeat; she had only been with the team several weeks, but already she was beginning to wonder how long she was going to be able to stay sane if she kept getting in between Rei and Usagi's arguments like this. "…fine, then I'll stay too. I mean, it's not like I've got anybody at home to worry if I don't turn up, like you two. And school…eh, school can go hang."

"Mako-chan!" Ami said in reflex, the shock in her voice palpable.

"Sorry, Ami-chan. Didn't mean to swear in front of you." She gave Ami a sparkling grin, yet turned with a far more sober expression to face her leader. "But seriously, Usagi-chan. If it's okay with Mamoru-san, we'll stay."

"It's okay with me," Mamoru said, wondering all the while if it really was. Still, he couldn't resist adding a little light-hearted comment of his own; this night really needed the injection of humour, after all. "Better for you to go to school after all, odango atama. You need to study harder."

Usagi looked pole-axed for a moment by this comment, like she couldn't believe that Mamoru had had the gall to say it. Bare seconds later, she was standing it front of him and poking one slender finger right in the middle of his chest. "Ooh, say that AGAIN!"

"What, didn't hear me the first time?" he asked, unbearably amused by the flushed face before him; he'd noticed only earlier that day that Usagi was rather pretty, but her heart-shaped face was even more lovely when she was having a little hissy fit. Perhaps that is why he found himself unable to stop there. "Well, I figured you had a problem with listening considering your marks, but…"

"Usagi, quit it." Rei's voice was flat, surprising both Mamoru and Usagi. 

"Rei-chan, do you always have to be such a royal pain?" the blonde-haired girl complained, backing away from Mamoru (though not without sticking her tongue out at him first, if only for good measure). 

"Takes one to know one!"

"That's it!" Usagi said, and stomped her foot before turning back to Mamoru. "Mamoru-san, do you have any food?" she asked, though the question seemed a little pointless as she stalked off to the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

"I hope you're well stocked, Mamoru-san," came Luna's wry voice from where she was seated beside Ami. "Otherwise, you're going to hear all about it for the next year."

"Well, finally. Something to look forward to, at last!" came his wry reply. He rubbed his temple for a moment, and then found his attention locked upon the oddest member of this group of unexpected guests. He couldn't help but feel mildly jealous of him; the sleeping shitennou was absolutely undisturbed by the arguments swirling all around him. "I wonder…"

"What?" Mako asked, looking up from where she herself was again examining the odd man.

"Nothing," Mamoru said absently, crossing his arms and taking a step closer.

"If you want his nijizuishou, Mamoru-san, just say so." The words were abrupt, Rei's tone steely enough to make even Mako blink. 

"Actually, Rei-san?" The mild question caught her suspicious attention and held it tightly. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Why?" she asked, giving him a mutinous look as she leaned back further into the couch and stared at him evenly. 

"Rei-san. Please." After shifting his weight to his other foot, he indicated the outside of the small apartment and inclined his head towards the ranch slider that led there. "Out on the balcony, if that's okay."

"Fine." With a theatrical sigh, Rei swooped out ahead of him and out onto the balcony. She opened the door for herself, and closed it behind her even before Mamoru could think to try walking through it. Shaking his head, he opened it, followed her out after closing the curtains behind them both. 

Unfortunately Usagi chose that particular moment to return, a plate of left-over curried rice in one hand and a half-full box of strawberry Pocky in the other. "Where are they going?" she asked with a frown cutting her brow in two, watching the curtains twitch into closure behind the two dark-haired individuals now alone on the balcony.

"Usagi-chan, leave it okay?" Mako said tiredly from where she still rested beside Zoisite; she was already moving to climb to her feet, however. Luna was unsure whether to be glad or apprehensive that the larger girl seemed ready to jump Usagi if she so much as made one step in the direction of the balcony door.

"But—"

With that, Mako shot out one hand as quick as the strike of a cobra, snatching from Usagi's lax grip the little pink box. "Come on. Share the wealth."

As Mako had hoped, the ensuing fight for the Pocky distracted Usagi from wondering what on earth Mamoru could possibly want with Rei alone. Both the sweatdropping Ami and Luna could only hope that the battle would last long enough for Mamoru to say whatever it was he had to say, and for Rei to understand it. 

* * *

"You can trust me, Rei-san."

"You keep saying that."

"And you keep not believing me." Mamoru leaned against the balcony railing, the light wind of the cool night ruffling hair as dark as her own. "Rei-san, I know this is weird for you, it's weird for all of us--"

"I just don't understand it," Rei said quite suddenly, and in a voice possibly far more vulnerable than what she had actually intended to use. "How can you go around saying you're our ally while you work against us? It just…it just doesn't fit with the Mamoru I thought I lo…knew."

Mamoru caught her slip, frowned. He passed a hand over his eyes, found it hard to even contemplate meeting her eyes now. "Like I you said before, it's complicated."

"So why can't we simplify it?" she asked, the force of her personality more than evident in her words and the way she held her slight, strong frame. 

"Rei-san, I explained to you…I feel like I need the ginzuishou to understand who I am."

"You _feel_ like you need it?" she asked, curling her tongue around the word as if the taste of it were repugnant to her.

Hearing her misunderstanding clearly, Mamoru thought on his words somewhat more carefully before speaking again. "In my heart, I feel it. In my head, I know it," he elaborated, the withheld emotion in his voice causing her to give him a strongly peculiar look. "That crystal can tell me everything…can lead me to the one who knows everything."

"The princess." 

He echoed the words, wondered why they sounded so hollow this night, with this girl before him. "The princess."

Rei's fingers began to tap against the railing quietly, without rhythm; he wasn't sure that she realised she was actually doing it, staring off into blank space the way that she was. "You really don't know who she is?"

"No. Sometimes I think…" His voice trailed off as he wondered how he was to explain a feeling he held onto as tenaciously as the earth held onto the moon. "Sometimes I think I've seen her, touched her…but…she disappears so quickly, like the moon slipping behind a cloud." He shook a head that felt as if it were filled with cobwebs and dust, an attic of memories that were never supposed to have seen daylight ever again. "I have no idea who she really is."

Rei snorted; when he gave her a questioning look, she couldn't help but give him an involuntary smile back "At least you're not as bad as Zoisite. Calling Usagi a princess, I mean…what did she do to him, brainwash him completely?"

"He also called me a prince. Do you think he was off-base there, too?" he asked her with a small smile, unconsciously posing as he leaned back on the balcony to face her more completely. He crossed one elegant ankle over the other, raised a dark eyebrow at her as the smile grew wider.

Rei blushed, looked away in the hopes that the darkness of the night would hide it from him. "I can see you as a prince more than Usagi as a princess, that's for sure," she muttered, wishing that she didn't have to react like this to him, just because he could be so damned charming when he wasn't making her wonder if he were really on their side. 

"I'd agree, but then maybe we should give the odango more credit." A shake of his head indicated that Mamoru hadn't quite intended to voice that peculiar notion. "Never thought I'd say that."

"Never thought I'd hear it," but her voice was affectionate towards the bubble-headed Senshi all the same, something Usagi would have been surprised to hear had she been there. "I mean, she's a klutz and a ditz and who knows what's she got us into now, but…if this does help us find the princess…" She trailed off, paused a moment to consider what she needed to say. "You know what, Mamoru-san?"

"What?"

"I want to find her, too." Rei tossed her hair again, and then looked out to the bright lights of Tokyo before them both. Even in the early hours of the morning the city blazed with light and life, bright enough to hurt her eyes. A surge of love moved through her heart, reminded her of all the reasons why she had accepted the burden of her alter-ego without question that day on the bus that went so off its scheduled route that it wasn't even funny in retrospect. "Ever since Luna told us about her – which was so little – I just…we're supposed to be protecting her. How can we protect her if we don't know where she is, or even _who_ she is?" A pause, and then she said in a frustrated tone: "I think…that's why I'm so damned angry with you!" Her outburst led to a quiet spell again, and when she spoke her voice was much more controlled. "I can't help but think you're stopping us from finding her."

"Well, now you know I want to find her as much as you do," he pointed out sensibly, looking out across the city himself. His attention was held more by the moon and the stars that danced about it, however; even then, it was images from a dream that he really saw painted across the sky. "It didn't feel right saying it in front of Usagi-san, somehow, but…I think I love her."

"You do?" There was no masking the sudden pain that entered her voice, twisted those violet eyes in pain; he wished he could kick himself for forgetting.

_They're only fourteen, yes, but you're the one who led her on in the first place…!_

"I'm sorry, Rei-san."

"It's okay." She kept looking out across the city, a faint and wistful smile on her pretty features. "Some things aren't meant to be, I guess."

"I have dreams of her," he said, wondering why he was saying this aloud when he knew that Rei probably did not need to hear it right now. However, he just couldn't help but feel that he himself needed to say them. "She's looking for me, she's so far away…but I can hear her. Calling for me, asking me to find the crystal, asking me to save her…" When his voice trailed off he stole a glance over at Rei, only to find she was watching him with a sad curiosity that tied his heart up in knots. "It's those dreams, that make me so tense. They get more vivid with each nijizuishou that's revealed. I can't help but think she's in danger, somehow."

"You dream of her?" she asked, and then frowned. "Once or twice," she continued in a slow voice, "I think…I've had visions of her. Nothing major, just…a shining presence." Another pause, and she added: "You should come by the shrine sometime. Maybe I can have the fire show me what you see." 

Mamoru looked away.

"Only if you wouldn't mind." This was said in a hurried voice, with a blush beginning to crawl up her cheeks; she'd only just realised that it was potentially a deeply personal thing for him, these dreams he had of a princess that he thought he loved. 

"Hey, we're a team now, aren't we?"

"We are?" she asked, voice lightly dubious.

"I'm in if you are. For the princess?" he said, and held out a hand to her. 

"…for the princess." The pair shook hands, Rei holding onto him for perhaps a second longer than was truly needed. "Thank you, Mamoru-san."

"Anytime, Rei-san. Anytime at all." And then cocked his head, indicated it was time to go inside. With a nod, she reached for the door before he could open it for her.

_Well, I guess that's just Rei_, he couldn't help but think with an affectionate mental smirk. _She needs no chivalry, this one…just someone who can understand that being burnt by fire is sometimes the best thing that can ever happen to them_.

* * *

"Ooh, what are they talking about? I can't hear them!"

"Kind of the point, Usagi-chan." Mako pointed out, tugging Usagi away from where she had pressed herself up against the curtains for at least the tenth time. The blonde promptly fell down on her rear with a shriek, which Mako calmly ignored as she resumed eating the last stick of strawberry Pocky. 

"But…Tuxedo Kamen's mine!" Usagi complained, rubbing her backside and glaring at Mako. 

Mako bit off a large chunk of the stick, said around it thoughtfully: "So you still want him, knowing he's Mamoru-san, eh?"

"I…" Struck dumb, Usagi could only blink up at Mako with little to no comprehension. "Well…I…"

"Hey, it's cool if you do, you know. Leaves Motoki-san to me, you know?" she winked at the smaller girl, happily finishing off the treat. 

"But…but…I don't want Mamoru-san!" she exclaimed, leaping to her feet and still glaring at her comrade. 

"Oh, odango atama, I'm hurt," the man in question remarked mildly as he came inside, only a step behind Rei. 

Usagi stared at the pair for a moment, unable to think of anything to say. In the end, she only managed a shaking, frustrated: "I…ooh! I hate you!"

"I'll remember that next time you need me to spirit you out of danger," he replied in a wry voice, displaying no sign of bruised feelings whatsoever. "Look. It's late, all right? So maybe you and Ami-san ought to get home. Makoto-san, Rei-san and I will be fine here with our…guest."

Mako didn't bother to hide an enormous yawn. "We'll call you if there's a problem. Right away."

"…I guess." The suspicious look that she gave Rei indicated that she didn't quite believe that at least one of the party would do as said. "Right away, right?"

"Sure, Usagi-chan," Rei said dismissively, already waving her hand in farewell. "Don't get lost on the way home, now."

Luna yawned herself, unable to help but point out: "Hey. She has me to get her home, and a warm bed waiting for her."

Mamoru laughed out loud at this, earning Looks from both cat and blonde Senshi. "Relying on a cat to get you home? You get more and more interesting by the day, odango atama."

"Stop…calling…me…THAT!" Usagi declared through clenched teeth.

Mamoru smirked at this, but his voice and eyes were oddly soft as he said: "Sure, Usagi-san. Goodnight."

Usagi was fuming as she left the apartment. "He's such a jerk!" she burst out, stomping one small foot on the ground.

Ami hid her own delicate yawn with one hand, still stowing her computer. "But he is Tuxedo Kamen."

"…Ami-chan, you're so cruel."

Stopping dead, Ami blinked and asked: "I am?"

Luna sighed, shook her small head. "Let's just forget this for now and get some sleep, all right?"

* * *

_KUNZITE!_ The voice thundered into his brain, reverberated with sudden searing pain through every nerve ending. The pain, however, was not his greatest concern; what truly bothered him was the fact that Beryl was angry enough to throw her mental voice into his brain with such force.

_Report at once!_ the voice continued, thunder and lightning striking together in his mind. _I wish to know immediately where that useless idiot Zoisite is and what he dares to play at now!_

He frowned at this, but had scarcely a moment to truly consider her words. The only thought that flashed through his mind right before he teleported to the audience chamber, however, was deeply confused by the ill logic of her words.

_…she knows where he is. How could she **not** know where he is? If she really wanted to know, she would…Zoisite doesn't know enough to shield from her, even for short periods like Nephrite used to…!_

There was no time to ruminate upon the thought as he appeared in her chamber, stood at sharp attention before the red-headed woman who held so much power in hands that resembled claws. "My Queen," he said reverently as he bowed his silvered head. "May I be of service?"

"May you be of service?" she scoffed, hands circling her orb like ravenous vultures. "Tell me where Zoisite is!"

"My Queen?" he questioned, daring to raise his head to meet her irritated gaze. The sight of her anger made him wince; even when only in the beginnings of her furies, Beryl was difficult to gaze upon. 

With a scowl that could have sunk an ocean liner on first sight, she snapped: "He should have reported to me hours ago! Where is he?"

"Can't you sense him?" he asked, knowing the question inane but startled enough to let it fall from his lips. Usually he would be far more careful in his phrasing; granted that he was the shitennou least likely to incur her wrath, generally he was very good at it. It was not to be today, however. 

"Do not waste my time, Kunzite," her otherwise lovely voice a low warning. "Do you believe I'd ask you if I knew where he was?" Though she had calmed somewhat now, the storm was far from passed. Kunzite could palpably feel her anger at revealing her lack of control in such a public fashion, and knew that it could not possibly bode well for Zoisite. Beryl never assumed the blame for anything, let alone her fluctuating moods; Zoisite would surely bear the brunt of this particular mood, and none the too pretty it would be. 

"He hasn't returned from the hunt," Kunzite said in as diplomatic a tone as he could muster, allowing his usual stoic calm to do the speaking for him even though he was roiling inside. "He can not possibly be far away."

"Locate him." The order was sharp and not to be challenged. 

"…my Queen, I can not always--"

"I said, locate him!" The husky voice thundered about her throne room, echoed off every wall and made her youma wince at the force of the sound. "If that worthless idiot is hiding from me because he let another nijizuishou--"

Kunzite's words were accidental and abrupt. "He's not dead…?"

At first Beryl looked sharply annoyed at the interruption, then a small slow smile crossed her features and coloured them with malice. "Oh, we couldn't have that, could we Kunzite?" There was a teasing note in what she said, but the corresponding warning was as clear as glass. "No. He's not dead. I would have seen the energy burning in him return to Metallia-sama if he were." She then flicked one long-nailed hand, fury returning to darken her eyes and her expression. "He's hiding, for who knows what reason. Find him. Bring him back." As he nodded and made to turn from her, she added very sharply: "Do not even contemplate shielding him from me, Kunzite. Or you know how he will pay for it."

"Yes, my Queen." No true emotion was given away in his voice or his stance, but Beryl could sense distress from him all the same. It made her grin coldly, gave her next words a cruel flavouring that made him wince deep inside of himself.

"Good. Now do it."

Bowed his head again, and left the chamber. In his own residence, Kunzite immediately stretched out his powers, felt nothing. If Zoisite had indeed lost the fourth nijizuishou, then perhaps it was not surprising that he would be disinclined to present to Beryl his failure, but…Kunzite found it hard to believe that he would hide alone.

He wouldn't think I'd hand him to Beryl on a silver platter if he crawled back empty handed…surely he wouldn't. He still has use yet to me yet.

It was hard to understand how Zoisite could vanish like this – and while he was admittedly taking an inordinate amount of time to return, Kunzite had not concerned himself about it until Beryl had summoned him. After all, even though he occasionally still watched the younger shitennou while in action, Zoisite could become rather touchy about being "monitored." Highly capable as he was, Zoisite still felt inferior in the face of those who surrounded him, and much as he appreciated Kunzite's tutelage and occasional assumption of the lead, Zoisite preferred to prove himself on his own.

_I think he will forgive me if I get involved now – for after all, better it be me than the Queen._

With an almost audible sigh, Kunzite stretched the powers that flowed through him out ever further, felt the strain began to cloud his vision with spots of red that began to grow and grow. It was only when his sorcerous vision of the Terran dimension was nearly completely awash with red, the flickering lights of every human (and every near-human) beginning to run together like burning mercury, that he stopped. Letting it go, he braced himself for the aftershock of magics used too harshly, winced as the pain struck him hard.

Still, even above the screaming of abused neurones, the thought that resounded loudest was thus: 

_Zoisite, what the **hell** are you up to this time…?_

* * *

"Usagi-chan, what's wrong?" Ami's voice came out of nowhere, startling Usagi from where she was leaping from foot to foot outside her classroom and looking frustrated.

"Ami-chan!" And the blue-haired girl took a step backward, but it didn't save her from Hurricane Usagi. The girl leapt forward, clasped her hands, pumped them up and down in a fashion that had Ami's head spinning like a carousel on high-speed. "You have to help me!"

"Usagi-chan, we need to go…oh no." Ami paused, blew out a breath that was both frustrated and resigned. "Please, tell me that you haven't got detention again…have you?"

"No! Worse!" Usagi then promptly dropped Ami's hands and looked back in the classroom through the closed door, frowning at the redhead inside packing her purse at her desk. "Haruna-sensei confiscated my communicator!"

This announcement first made Ami blink; against her will, she found to her surprise that she was actually beginning to smile. "…what? Why would she do that?"

"…'cause I was using it in class." Hung her head. "Ami-chan, I just…I just wanted to know what was going on, and Rei-chan wouldn't tell me anything…I got kind of steamed…I mean, she's ALL BY HERSELF with Tuxedo Kamen…I mean, Mamoru-san…I mean…ooh, it's not fair!"

Ami shook her head, the hand that she had raised to her face more to hide a smile than a frown. Usagi seemed to sense the amusement Ami was finding in this situation, because she then put her hands on her hips and glared at her comrade. Coughing, Ami straightened both her back and her expression; sternly she said: "Usagi-chan, you need to get it back."

"That's the problem! She won't give it back." On tiptoes she peered back into the classroom, then returned her hands to her hips and continued scowling in the oddly sweet way only Usagi seemed capable of. "…man, it's so not fair…I mean, she was going _out_ with Tuxedo Kamen…I mean, Mamoru-san…it's just…it doesn't work! They can't be the same person!" The words seemed to be more directed at herself, given the way she was muttering them in the general direction of the floor.

Ami sighed now, losing most of her amusement with the situation quite abruptly. A look down at her own inactivated computer reminded she'd been waiting to meet up with Usagi after school to turn it on so they could talk to the three at Mamoru's apartment, as they had done at lunchtime. "Luna's not going to be happy about this."

"Aw, Luna's never happy," Usagi sulked. "It's not fair!"

Ami had no idea if she was referring to the loss of her communicator or the Rei/Mamoru fiasco that was obviously evolving into a epic soap opera in her head, but it didn't matter. Stowing her own little palm-computer away in her school-case, she pushed past Usagi in her polite way to knock on the classroom door. 

"Come in?" came the surprised voice from inside; without waiting a further comment, Ami stepped inside to greet the teacher. 

"Haruna-sensei." After a respectful bow of her head, she looked up with her usual too-serious expression and asked politely: "Can I speak to you for a moment?"

"Of course, Mizuno-san," the teacher replied, setting aside her purse and a thick folder of assignments yet to be marked. Even though she looked very tired, as if she'd had more than enough school for one day, Ami could sense that she was genuinely happy to have an extra word with a student who actually _wanted_ to learn something. "What is it about? More schoolwork?"

"Well, no. It's kind of about my friend, Usagi."

"Tsukino?" There was a brief second in which Haruna-sensei seemed unable to understand why the best student in the school should want to talk about the worst, but then she seemed to recall that Ami and Usagi actually did spend time together. "I still don't understand how you two are friends, actually," she remarked, in a fashion so offhand that Ami couldn't help but believe she hadn't really intended to say it aloud. "I can only hope that you rub off on her, and not the other way around…"

"Hey!" Both teacher and student looked up to see Usagi standing in the doorway, managing to both look annoyed and rather sheepish at being caught out eavesdropping.

With eyes rolled to the ceiling, Haruna-sensei returned her gaze to Ami. "You can understand that, right?"

Ami's smile was broad and entirely accidental. "I suppose so."

"Ami-chan!" Usagi all but squawked, betrayal evident in every syllable.

Admirably well, Ami then ignored the performance of her friend and concentrated entirely on the teacher. "I actually wanted to ask you if I could have Usagi-chan's…palm computer back."

"Her palm computer." The understanding dawned only when she reached back into her purse and removed the hot-pink communicator that Usagi had managed to make her confiscate. "Is that what it is?"

"Oh, yes." Ami stopped for a moment, gearing herself up for a lie. In fact she was actually _steeling_ herself; it was not in her character to lie, if only because she saw no real point in doing so. However, there was a point to this one, and with that in mind she spun out her little story with scarcely a hitch in her voice. "She…uses it sometimes in class to help her. I mean, I programmed it for her." She paused a moment, and then waved her hands quite suddenly in a negative gesture. "It's not for during exams or anything, but…it just prompts her with things when she's having trouble."

Rocking it back and forth while holding it between her fingers, Haruna-sensei looked up at Ami curiously and not without a little suspicion. "Is that so?"

"Oh, yes." With an earnest tilt to her expression, Ami pushed her bangs out of her eyes. "I know I should have told you about it, but…I guess I wasn't thinking. And it's not really finished, either. It just has…fact prompts, a kanji checker, a timeline of basic events in it at the moment." She smiled brightly then, helping the apparent sincerity of the gesture would win her some believability points even while Usagi stared at her back in complete amazement. "It doesn't _give_ answers, you see, it just gives clues and hints that I thought would especially help Usagi remember what she needs to know to pass her tests."

Haruna-sensei was still examining the object and missing most of Ami's Academy Award winning performance; however she did look up then with a raised eyebrow. Apparently, she had been trying to work out how to turn it on. "How does it work?"

"Here, let me." Taking the proffered communicator, she switched it on and danced her nimble fingers over the keypad in a tango of numbers and characters that had Usagi's eyes swirling. Ignoring this, Ami then showed it to the carefully watching teacher. "See? Put in the kana, and it flashes up the kanji." Before Haruna-sensei could try it herself, Ami took it back to fiddle again for a moment more. "And see? Basic timeline of the Bakumatsu," she finished, holding out the communicator so Haruna-sensei could see the beginnings of a lovely historical timeline.

"That's really quite remarkable," she said quietly, using one of the buttons that Ami was indicating to scroll across the screen. "And you say you did it yourself?"

"Well, I like to fiddle a little with computers." A flush was creeping up her neck and her eyes were a little bright, but that was the only indication she gave that the situation was making her increasingly uncomfortable. "It's nothing much."

"It's very clever," Haruna-sensei corrected, dropping her own fingers away from the device and leaving it firmly in Ami's hands. "But yes, you should have asked first…even though it's very nice of you to help Tsukino."

"She's worth it." The words required no thought, and Ami only smiled broadly at the mildly sceptical look directed at her by the teacher whose teaching abilities were nearly done in by Usagi on a daily basis. "May I have it back?"

"Of course. Just don't let Usagi get too distracted by it, will you? She was using it like a Gameboy in class – I thought it was one, actually. It could be helpful, but she still needs to listen to her teacher."

"She will. Won't you Usagi-chan?"

"…yeah," Usagi said quietly as she came to stand beside her friend, admiration shining from her pretty little face. Only a sharp nudge from Ami made her blink, realise what she was supposed to be doing. "Oh! Sorry, Haruna-sensei." Bowing their heads in almost complete synchronisation, the two then rapidly exited the classroom, letting the door bang shut behind them.

"Here you go," Ami said without preamble or even lecture, shoving the little device back into Usagi's hand as they hurried down the corridor. She only stopped dead when she realised that Usagi was no longer at her side; rather the blonde was some feet down the corridor staring at the communicator with complete amazement.

"How did you do that? I didn't know my communicator could do that!" Ami heard Usagi say as she went to her side, the girl obviously totally dumbfounded by the unknown capabilities of the Senshi device.

"It can't," Ami said, and then winced. "Well, not usually." The embarrassed flushed from earlier was already returning, little by little. "But…it's linked to my computer, Usagi-chan. I just activated the link and pulled some of my study notes out of it. It can cope with that, at least for a little while."

Usagi's jaw was hanging down so low she really should have been catching flies in her wide-open mouth. "You keep study notes on your Mercury computer?"

"Well, yes."

With one hand held behind her head and confusion shining like moonlight in her blue eyes, she said rather reluctantly: "…please tell me you're not _studying_ while we're fighting youma, Ami-chan!"

"…well…" she hemmed while Usagi continued to stare at her in disbelief; the mild stand-off ended in grin as she ducked the wild arc Usagi's bag described in vaguely her direction. "Joking!"

Usagi laughed at this in delight, then glomping Ami rather unexpectedly. "I like it when you joke, Ami-chan!" she announced as Ami struggled not to fall to the ground under Usagi's enthusiastic weight. "You should do it more often!"

"Well…" she said again, blushing very deeply this time. Sometimes Usagi really did seem prone to forgetting that not only had Ami never had a friend quite like Usagi before, in fact she'd never really had a friend at all. Disguising the odd thought, she pulled out her own computer, flipped up the communication window. A message immediately flashed, and a second later Mako's face popped up onscreen.

"Finally got you!" she said, sounding both happy and mildly aggrieved. With one hand running through decidedly messy hair and too-bright eyes in a pale face, it looked decidedly like she, at least, had been up all night.

Usagi, hanging over Ami's slim shoulder, burbled happily: "Mako-chan! What's up?"

"_He's_ up," she replied; a glance behind her was obviously directed at the shitennou at the centre of their latest Senshi crisis. Ami could hear some background noise that rose and fell in the fashion of distant voices, and it did sound suspiciously sound to her like an argument. A sinking feeling was beginning low in her stomach even as Mako flashed a tired grin and continued. "He's actually been up for a little while, and he's talking."

"He's talking?" Ami asked quietly, before Usagi could express her continued delight over this new development. A lot of the time her optimistic outlook for every day was rather endearing, but sometimes she really wished Usagi would just take some things seriously. 

"Weird stuff, but yeah." Mako winced quite abruptly as a muffled sound in the background came off rather clearly as a window breaking. "Better come right on over!"

"Why didn't you call us sooner?" Ami asked, already looking for her Mercury wand; it slipped into her hand from the interstitial spaces of the universe, felt cool and solid in her grip. "I know mine was off and…and so was Usagi-chan's, but if you'd hit the emergency frequency you would have reached us."

"Hey. Didn't want to deprive you OR Usagi-chan of the school you love so much. Still, now that the day's all over – can't wait to see you." With a wink, Mako then broke off the communication, already turning back to the apparent fray in the apartment behind her. 

Ami took the kind jibe well, only shaking her head with a smile. Even with the thought of what awaited them at the apartment, it couldn't help but grow wider at the sight of Usagi taking it badly, jumping around declaring: "Ooh, that Mako-chan! I'll get her for this, just you wait and SEE!"


	3. Gone Upside Down

What To Do With Daylight

Three: Gone Upside Down 

_In which Zoisite's awakening results in large glazier's bills/a prince is revealed/a princess remains hidden/Beryl muses on replacements while Kunzite wonders on changes/a locket starts a civil conversation over groceries and/a truce is called between prince and fire II._

It was three knocks before anyone would answer the door.

"Took you long enough," Usagi announced as Mako finally pulled open the door a crack, and then frowned at the way that Mako continued to hold it open only slightly. "Hey, Mako-chan, let us in!"

"Look, it's…" Mako winced at the sound of a crash that sounded suspiciously like someone kicking the coffee table. "…complicated," she then finished, obviously fighting the urge to turn around and stare at the carnage behind her.

Ami, realising that her previous feeling that the awakening had been a rude one was entirely correct, sighed. "What's going on in there?" she asked calmly, even though internally she was beginning to feel anything but. Luna, whom they'd met just outside of the apartment, pressed against her leg in an oddly feline movement, and Ami couldn't blame her; if she was as small and defenceless as the little cat, she'd be loathe to walk in on a wild Zoisite either.

Mako leaned on the doorjamb, effectively opening the front door to the apartment more. The reason she did this probably had more to do with the fact that Ami's hand was on Usagi's arm than her own distraction by the commotion behind. "They're trying to calm him down," she attempted to explain, the defeat in the slump of her shoulders indicating the degree of success that "they" were obviously having. "He's got a little bit freaked out. His…memories are a little…um…scrambled."

"Scrambled?" Usagi asked, peering around Mako and not managing to see anything down the narrow corridor. However, another crash made both her and Mako wince again.

"…look, you can come in, but just…don't say anything dumb, okay?" the brunette said at last, letting the door go completely so that it swung open. With this barrier removed, further sound spilled out of the living room; clearly some sort of argument was going on between Rei and Zoisite. Neither Ami nor Usagi could hear Mamoru's voice above the light alto of Zoisite's voice, or the frustrated tone Rei had adopted, but they figured he could not be far away.

"What could I say that was dumb?" Usagi wondered aloud as she entered the apartment, swinging her school case at her side.

Ami was tempted to make a suggestion, which surprised her; then again, she supposed she had every right to feel a bit tense at this particular moment. "Just let someone else talk for a bit, okay?" she managed to say eventually, diplomatic and calm on the exterior even though inside she was in turmoil. For reasons she could not quite understand, meeting this version of Zoisite had her feeling far more nervous than she would have liked.

There was no room for Usagi to reply to this, because when they entered the living room Zoisite was already shouting loud enough to drown out the rest of the entire world "—all I am asking is for you to tell exactly _what_ you did – who the hell is this?" He turned the direction of his attention to Usagi as he said the latter words, even though he was apparently asking them of Rei still.

Rei, standing only inches away from the shitennou who stood only slightly taller than herself, snorted. Unlike Mako, she did not show any outward signs of tiredness; in fact the events of the day, whatever they were, seemed to have energised her beyond all understanding. "You should know! You're the one who called her a _princess_ last night."

"I did what?" Scorn entered the lovely voice as he stared at the girl in the school uniform watching him with an open mouth. Tossing his loose mane of honey-blond hair, Zoisite looked first at Rei, then at the silent Mamoru watching the proceedings from where he leaned against the ranch slider. "I called _that_ little girl a princess?"

"Hey! I'm not a little girl!" Usagi blurted out, finding her tongue and some words to go with it quite abruptly. Without a second thought she was yanking the moon-stick out of her school-case and waving it rather erratically in his general direction. "I healed you, didn't I?"

The dark green eyes widened at the sight of the lunar artefact, and he took several strong steps in Usagi's direction; this had her backing right off and looking rather alarmed about it. Zoisite may have physically been not much taller or broader than she, but there was a concealed strength about his form that would make any remotely sensible individual think twice about tangling with him. "You're the one who did this?" he snapped, backing Usagi straight into the nearest wall. Before anyone could think to stop him, he grabbed the wrist of the hand with the moon-stick and raised it to wave the object in her face. "Tell me what you did to me!"

"All right, back off, Zoisite." Mamoru's tone was quiet and deadly serious. Moving as silently as an assassin to the side of the terrified girl and the furious shitennou, he placed one hand on Zoisite's shoulder and tightened it considerably.

The shitennou shook the hand off, punctuating each word he directed at Usagi with a wave of the stick. "What. Did. You. Do. To. ME?!"

"_I said back off_."

The sharp words, as regal and commanding as those of any king, sent tremors through the hearts of all those listening, as well as sharp little questions into the parts of their minds that dealt in memory. The effect they had on Usagi – a thrill she felt through her entire body – paled in comparison when she realised what they had done to Zoisite.

Bowing his head, the loosened hair falling across his narrow features, Zoisite obediently retreated from Usagi. Elegant fingers picked at the fine silk of the shirt he had been wearing last night after his final transformation; when he spoke his tone was resigned, quiescent. "…yes, Endymion-sama."

"…what?" Usagi asked in amazement, not knowing what to react to first – the familiarity of Mamoru's regal tone, the name which resounded in her heart at a frequency that threatened to shake her all to pieces, or the way that Zoisite had seemed _compelled_ by some strong internal voice to obey the man she now knew was Tuxedo Kamen.

Rei was shaking her head, stepping up to stand beside Mamoru with her arms folded across her chest; the look she gave Zoisite seemed to explain explicitly that it was she and Mamoru who had been keeping the disoriented shitennou in check. The breeze that blew lightly through the two broken windows did undermine their apparent success at this task, however. "He's been calling him that ever since he woke up. Claims he doesn't know why."

A hand migrated promptly to his head, his slim fingers tangling in the unordered hair at his temple. "I know why," and from the impatience of the words it appeared that he'd said them many a time before this one. "I call him that because it's his _name_."

"You just don't remember where you got it from," Rei pointed out impatiently, also sounding like this was an old reply misused many times before now.

Everyone, however, was startled by the fact that it was Luna who chose to speak with words that shocked them all deeply. "Endymion-sama was the Prince of Earth, long ago," she explained in a voice that sounded half like it was from a dream, the sharp feline eyes staring into somewhere far distant from the room in which they all stood.

"What?" asked both Zoisite and Mamoru; the former was nearly resigned, the latter disbelieving.

Luna rose up from where she was seated beside Ami's slender ankles, jumped to a better speaking-point upon the back of the low-slung couches. With the eyes of all present upon her, she made to attempt to clarify her own vague understanding at least a little more. "He was the Prince of Earth during the Silver Millennium."

Usagi sat down heavily, back sliding down the wall as her school-case clattering to the floor. "…what…when Queen Serenity was alive?"

"Yes." Luna's gaze was oddly sympathetic as she looked to Usagi, who had enough trouble coping with being Sailor Moon now, let alone potentially in the past.

"How much do you remember?" That was Zoisite, the shitennou's passionate fury seeming to have completely disappeared. In fact now he seemed a limp rag doll, standing only with the support of the couch beside him.

Luna met his eyes and his question evenly with another one of her own. "How much do you?"

"Practically nothing." His disgust and frustration burned in his eyes, stained his cheeks with high colour. "My memories…my memories don't work the way they should." Skirting around the end of it, he sat down heavily upon the couch and scowled deeply. "I have…some recollection of things that have happened to me, but then I have all these memories of things that never happened!" His jamais vu was obviously part of what had fuelled his earlier outbursts, reflected by the next words he shot directly at the blonde girl crumpled against the far wall. "Hence why I want to know what THAT girl thought she was doing to me – holy hell, are _you_ Sailor Moon?"

Even though she thought maybe she should be offended by the patent doubt in the truth of that, Usagi just looked at the others for reassurance. Understanding that they would not stop her from confessing it – and she did wonder why, eventually deciding that one way or another they'd already told him their own identities – she said quietly: "…yeah…"

"How embarrassing." He hung his head again, cradled it in his hands as he shook it in his own private mire of disbelief. "I ever lost to _you_?"

"So what do you remember?" Ami asked suddenly, ignoring the looks of surprise the others gave her at her impulsive display of curiosity. "And what do you mean, you remember things that never happened?"

"If you asked me my name," he said in a voice muffled by both his hands and his hair, "I would say it was Zoisite. But if you are to believe my _driver's license_, it is Kawasa Kensuke."

"Driver's license?" Mako blinked at this, then looked rather taken aback by its full nimplication. "You can drive?"

Mamoru snorted at this, looked at his windows with dark irony. "I sure wouldn't let him drive _my_ car."

"Your support means so much, Endymion-sama." The words were as dry as a desert that had not seen rain for centuries. However he did not dwell upon this, instead raising his eyes to meet Ami's with a politeness that had the others frowning. "I have memories of living on earth as a normal human for the last twenty-three years."

"Oh, wow," Usagi breathed, looking down at the moon-stick that was presumably responsible for this interesting little development.

"That doesn't explain why I also have memories of spending the last dozen years in the Dark Kingdom, however," Zoisite pointed out with a sharp viciousness that had Usagi wondering if the moon-stick had done such a good job after all. "Or why I have flashes of a life lived a thousand years ago." Shaking his head again, he leaned back into the couch and crossed long legs impatiently. "It doesn't make any logical sense!"

"Hey. Usagi's involved. Nothing makes any logical sense where Usagi's involved."

"HEY!" Usagi protested, directing this both at Rei, who had voiced the thought, and Mamoru, who was attempting and failing to hide the amusement he had found in it.

Zoisite expelled a long breath that had all of the gathered group looking back to him. He openly took in and evaluated his surrounding, looking at each in turn: the girls, the talking cat, the man. "What exactly is going on here?" he asked eventually, voice indicating that he wanted to know, and know now.

"I think the most important question right now," Luna pointed out as she tried to hide her unease at the man's ill-tempered question, "is how much of a danger to us you're likely to be." A pointed look at the broken windows showed easily that she suspected those windows could have been any of them, had Zoisite felt so inclined for it to be so.

Snorting, Zoisite leaned forward and balanced his elbows on his knees. Resting a sharply pointed chin on his laced fingers, he smiled rather severely at the little black feline. "If I was going to run, little moon-cat, I would have done it hours ago. The fact that I haven't should tell you something, no?"

"Like maybe you don't have any powers any longer?" she asked sharply.

Zoisite opened his mouth and his eyes glinted for a moment in a fashion that was all too disconcertingly familiar. Before he could say anything, however, he seemed to draw some restraint up from deep within himself and closed it. His eyes now just held hard green fire, not the furious blaze that had threatened to erupt only seconds before. "How did you know that?" he asked quietly, the words only partly a warning.

"Your aura is muted."

Rei was shaking her head where she stood beside Mamoru, one hand absently about the silver and ruby necklace she wore at the base of her throat. "It doesn't matter, Luna," she said carefully, earning herself stares from everybody in the room. "He's not evil, anyway. Not any more."

Usagi was slowly climbing back her feet, moon-stick firmly in hand. "How can you be so sure?" she asked, giving both stick and shitennou looks that indicated she wasn't so inclined to believe in the power of the object any more.

A scornful look from Rei told Usagi exactly what the raven-haired Senshi thought of _that_ little comment. "I know evil, Usagi. Look." A ward paper was pulled out of one pocket – Usagi did wonder sometimes if Rei would _ever_ be caught without one of them on hand – and quickly moved through the gestures and brief syllables that charged the symbols with undeniable power. Swiftly she flung it towards the shitennou with a sharp: "Akuryou taisan!"

Easily Zoisite batted the paper away, with a flavour of annoyance that seemed to indicate he'd been doing it most of the day. "Would you quit doing that?" he complained, only cementing that particular impression further.

"See? No reaction," Rei said with audible satisfaction as she crossed her arms over her chest again. The paper fluttered to the floor and disappeared, and she paid it little heed. "He wouldn't be able to do that if he was actually still a Dark Kingdom flunky."

Dubious, Usagi looked at where the paper had been, and then again at her own moon-stick. "Are you sure you're doing that right?"

The laugh Rei gave then was partly unkind, but not totally. "Could say the same for you and the moon-stick, you know. But then again, if my ward doesn't work, then maybe you did do something better than a half-assed job."

"Hey!"

"Besides, if he tries anything funny, he's got four Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen on his case in four seconds flat." Rei paused to give these words some additional thought, soon augmenting them with: "…possibly one second flat, if you decide to trip and fall on him first."

"REI-CHAN!"

Holding his temple, it was Zoisite who actually broke up the burgeoning argument between Moon and Mars. "I'm actually beginning to wish I could still undertake my homicidal urges without this…conscience in my way."

"I know how you feel," Mamoru said quietly, earning annoyed looks from both girls and something approaching empathetic amusement from the others. Scowling, Usagi moved to change the subject.

"But we're still going to keep an eye on him, right?" she asked, ignoring the way Zoisite then proceeded to roll his eyes at her.

"I know I am," Rei said despite her little experiment.

"Hey." Zoisite's word got their attention, as did the fact that he stood off and brushed up the elegant trousers that he wore beneath the expensive shirt. "I think I want to go home now."

"Yeah, go and break someone else's windows and not mine," Mamoru muttered, looking again to the mess on the floor anyone had yet to attempt to clean up.

Usagi blinked at this, and then frowned. "You have a home?"

One hand reached into a pocket and brought out a slim wallet; Zoisite's quick fingers then released from it a small piece of paper that he held between two fingers like a playing card. "According to this, I live in an apartment on the other side of Juuban."

"That's right." Ami spoke up for the first time. Looking up from her computer, she flushed slightly at the odd look Zoisite was giving her and cleared her throat to speak in a rather lecturing tone. "Kawasa Kensuke. Second-year organic chemistry masters student. Currently on study leave. Lives about two miles east. Attends the University of Tokyo. Flawless academic record. Participates in varsity gymnastics and swimming." Ami withered slightly under the scrutiny of all around her, muttering in a low voice: "The picture matches."

"Let me see that," Zoisite said, flinging himself down upon the couch beside Ami. Ignoring the blush that continued to crawl up her neck to bloom across her cheeks, he leaned over her and then swore under his breath. "…this picture is even worse than the one on my license. My eyes are NOT that close together!"

"You're worried about your driver's license picture?" Incredulous, Mako gave Rei and Mamoru a sideways glance that resulted in her shaking her head and him shrugging.

"It's awful, look at it," Zoisite announced, making to hold out the licence to the brunette. Before she could grab it, however, he pulled it back only to stuff it into the appropriate compartment in his wallet. "On second thought, no, don't look at it, it doesn't do me any justice at all!"

Mamoru clapped his hands together soundly; when everyone was looking at him in surprise, he said: "All right, time out. We need to talk about this."

Zoisite snorted, flopped back further into the couch which he shared with Ami (who was by now, oddly, all but glowing from her blush). "Look. I've already promised to be a good boy and not try to kill any of you, all right?"

Mamoru snorted, looked again at the broken glass. "What about my windows?"

"Hey, you'd break a few windows if you had two different memories of what you were doing yesterday, too. And all that mixed up with the conviction that YOU'RE a long-lost prince of Earth. If that doesn't warrant a temper tantrum. I don't know what does. I mean, it was YOUR damned fault and not mine anyway." That last comment was directed at Usagi, who winced and stuffed the moon-stick back into her school-case at last.

"…I'm…sorry?"

Zoisite closed his eyes at this; when he opened them again they were tired. Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, he said quietly: "But seriously? I'm not going to hurt any of you. I just…I don't feel like it anymore."

"What do you mean, you don't…_feel like it_?" asked Usagi.

"Whatever you did to me sure did something…what is your name?"

"Tsukino Usagi."

"…Tsukino-san, right."

"Usagi," she said promptly without thinking; she'd never liked the formality of being addressed by her last name, and even though this was a Dark Kingdom shitennou, she just couldn't help herself.

"Whatever you did, it…well, as much as I can remember everything that went on in my lives before now, what I used to be in the Dark Kingdom just…doesn't seem relevant anymore." He paused a moment, and then screwed up his face like his thoughts physically hurt his mind. "I…" Frowning as he made to say something else, then snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.

"What aren't you telling us?"

The single word was as even as the gaze he levelled at Mamoru. "Nothing."

Rei's snort was disbelieving. "I think that's the problem."

"You want proof that I'm on your side?" To the accompaniment of deep gasps from most watching, Zoisite took out the nijizuishou from one pocket. "Take it." With a flick of one elegant wrist it fell into the waiting hands of Mamoru. "I don't think it's much good to me."

Only Mamoru didn't seem surprised by the sudden gift, turning the crystal over in his hands and determining that it was in fact the genuine article. "Have you got the other one?"

Rolling his eyes, Zoisite shook his head in apparent disbelief at Mamoru's idiocy. "You'd be lucky."

"Why did you do that?" The question came from Ami, whose voice was slightly hoarse as she looked at the man beside her.

Zoisite blinked at the question, then gave Ami a wide smile that only encouraged her blush to return. For reasons no-one seemed to be able to grasp, Zoisite seemed to have actually taken to the Senshi who spoke least. "Well, he's the prince, isn't he?"

"This prince thing is really getting weird," Usagi said suddenly. "You're sure about this?"

"That's about the only thing I remember from the Silver Millennium," Zoisite said with a quiet dignity that made Ami swallow with difficulty, made Mamoru's spine stiffen. "He was my prince. My lord. My liege. Whatever. Hence why I'm kind of stuck. Even if I still wanted to strangle him with his own stupid cape, I don't think I'd be able to go through with it." The laugh he gave then was oddly kind, and nothing like the mocking chuckle they had already heard far too many times before. "More's the pity. It's a terrible cape, but it'd probably make a fine garrotte."

Toeing some of the broken glass at his feet with a slippered foot, Mamoru said: "Thanks, Zoisite. And your fashion sense was always so much more attractive than mine."

"At least I had an excuse! Damn that Beryl and her lack of haute-couture knowledge anyhow."

"Beryl's the Queen of the Dark Kingdom?" Luna asked, unconsciously baring her claws and sinking them into the soft material of the couch. The query was urgent, like the single name had set off dozens of alarm bells in her mind.

"Yes," Zoisite said, looking rather disarmed by Luna's frantic question. "Didn't you…well, guess you didn't. Nice to know you guys knew even less about us than we did about you. I feel almost vindicated."

"Do you?" The unspoken accusation in Rei's words was like a blade held at his throat, ready to be drawn across it at the slightest provocation.

"As vindicated as one can feel when they don't care anymore." The smile that crossed his face was as even as his tone; the only thing that belied any uneasiness on his part was the way he raised one hand to twirl a strand of his lovely hair about his fingers so that it bound them tightly together. "So, giving you the crystal wasn't enough? Now you want information?"

Luna was the one to answer that question. "Yes."

Narrowing his eyes, Zoisite gave the moon-cat a speculative look. "It'll cost you."

"I thought you were on our side!" That unexpected outburst came from Ami, who promptly covered her mouth and tried to sink through the couch and then the floor when Zoisite raised an amused eyebrow at her.

"…that doesn't mean that I don't have to _eat_."

"…oh…" Ami continued to rue the fact that floors and couches are not permeable to human beings.

Into the uncomfortable silence, Mako finally said slowly: "I could whip you up something. I'm a good cook."

"A great one!" Usagi enthused, her mood exponentially brightening at the thought of being fed with Mako's culinary delights.

"If Mamoru-san doesn't mind…?"

Mamoru blinked, and then looked with doubt at his kitchen. "I could go and get something for us to eat."

"Oh, no. I'll cook it if you don't mind me in your kitchen, and trust me – you'd rather have my cooking than any take-away junk." With this said she gave Mamoru a rather beseeching look; the thought of getting back onto familiar ground by busying herself in a kitchen was an attractive thought to her overwrought mind indeed.

"Not a problem. There's a store just on the corner…I'll go and get something you can work with, if you guys don't mind keeping an eye on Zoisite here."

"I'm sure they know how to baby-sit an old enemy, Endymion-sama. Give them some credit."

Mamoru looked like he was opening his mouth to tell Zoisite to shut his when Usagi leapt to her feet and announced broadly: "I'm coming with you!"

"Really?" And no one could really fault Mamoru for looking somewhat taken aback. "You want to come shopping with me?"

"Hey, don't get me wrong – I'd rather eat slime than spend time with you." Usagi's face then broke into a sunny grin as she poked him in the arm with no small amount of delight. "I just have to make sure you buy the GOOD stuff."

"Hope you have a sky-high limit on your credit card, Mamoru-san," Luna observed wryly from where she still perched on the back of one couch.

"…damn. I forgot she's a bottomless pit."

"I am NOT!"

The argument seemed only to be beginning as the two walked out, Usagi already in enough of a state to try shoving Mamoru into the nearest wall.

_How nice to know that some things never change_, Luna couldn't help but observe with the beginnings of a little cat-smile.

Zoisite, on the other hand, didn't seem so amused by their little performance. After watching Usagi and Mamoru exit, he looked at the girls watching him on the edges of their seat. Leaning back elegantly in his own and throwing an arm over the back of the couch, he remarked wryly: "I'm never actually going to get anything to eat, am I?"

* * *

The address was correct. His disguise – little more than simple civilian garb – firmly in place, Kunzite surveyed the artist's home and frowned internally, even though externally his expression was as unreadable as an ancient text composed in invisible ink.

There were traces of Zoisite everywhere, to the trained eye – and Kunzite's gaze was very hard to fool. It was also not as if Zoisite was not in the habit of using extraordinary amounts of energy in his little missions; Kunzite had tried to explain the concept of _restraint_ to Zoisite many a time before with varying degrees of success. Admittedly there were times where he preferred Zoisite's compulsion to undertake everything with passionate fervour, but when on a mission for Beryl…it was far better to conserve energy than throw it about without thought. Frankly, that was the reason why Beryl had never even considered sending Zoisite on a mission similar to those Jadeite had once undertaken; they all understood perfectly well that Zoisite's stubbornness might get the job done, but the balance of energy at the end of it was likely to be far from desirable.

So indeed, he could see Zoisite's movements everywhere, from where he had entered the house – somewhere around the side, through a window from the look of it – and where he had exited. The trace energies indicated not only had he had the youma at his side, but that he had been followed.

_Smart little Senshi, to find Zoisite so soon.__ How do you do it?_ And though he did wonder what the answer to that particular puzzler was, he let it go. First things first, after all; there was a living energy in the house this moment, and the vague taint of it assured him that not only was it the carrier of a nijizuishou, but that said nijizuishou was long since extracted and claimed.

A sharp knock to the door was his only prior announcement of his arrival. From where he stood on the stoop, he could hear her come to the door, then check who it was through the small peephole. A sharp intake of breath was the next audible sound, tinged with two distinct flavours of surprise. _My word, he's handsome!_ was liberally mixed in with _…did I ask a model to come over **tonight**?_

"Oh," she said carefully to him as she began to open the door, though not fully – the chain was still firmly engaged. A small mental impulse on his part over-rode the woman's need for it, and a second later she was opening the door to him with a furrowed brow. It was obvious to even the most dim-witted individual that she had no real idea of why she was letting him in without complaint, but Kunzite saw no point in wasting energy on making her as compliant as a doll. In this half-dazed state she was already as useful to him as she was ever likely to become.

"Good evening," he said, voice like velvet. Smoothly he bowed his head to her, met her eyes directly; one second of this and she was flushing deeply, looking away. Kunzite might have grinned if he had been the type – or if it weren't so damned easy. "You're the artist, aren't you?"

She didn't reply for a long moment, squinting through thick glasses as she took in his appearance carefully, with the sharp delineating eye of a painter. Already she was recovering from the original shock of his handsome form, looking with a more critical tilt at what was before her. The scrutiny certainly did not bother Kunzite, who not only knew that he was gorgeous, but simply did not care. "…I'm sorry. Did I ask you to model for me?"

"No." Stepping past her, he moved several steps down the hallway as he gained his bearings in both a physical and a sorcerous sense. It was already obvious to him that Zoisite had entered the woman's studio when he had attacked her; he cast a look back to her and said evenly: "You didn't."

"I see." Looked up at him again, and laughed suddenly, nervously as she stepped closer, following him. "Can I? Ask you to model for me?"

"Perhaps later. May I see your studio?"

"…of…of course…" The confusion was creeping back into her words as he pushed at her mind to make her allow him through without complaint. "Would you like some tea?" It was clear that she was struggling to make sense of illogical action with the familiar. Kunzite had seen it a thousand times before, and it had never been particularly amusing to him.

"Tea would be nice." Already he was striding forward again, feeling the artist's eyes following every movement of his body and cataloguing it away for future reference. _That_ amused him, though only in the sense that he himself had done similar things as a tutor. After all, not only was Kunzite an aesthete, there was no better way to perfect a warrior's skill than by watching them. Kunzite had studied the movements of others with exquisite concentration, partly to correct the mistakes to create to a flawless performance, partly to simply enjoy the visual feast that it could be.

The thought led near-immediately to an image of Zoisite emblazoning itself across his mental fields; he could so clearly see the slight but strong shitennou twisting and near-dancing in combat, using speed and stealth to make up for the nearly too-delicate form he had been cursed with, _blessed_ with.

_Yes, for there is no-one in heaven, hell or earth who could match the beauty of the sharp little sakura that we crafted of him…_

"How do you like it?"

The question startled him, though he scarcely showed it. "Black." Having entered the studio while consumed with the distracting image of his lover in his mind, Kunzite pushed the green-eyed memory aside in order to actually examine at his surroundings. The boarded-up windows showed exactly where Zoisite had entered, but he was more interested in what canvases lay within. Sketchbooks were scattered about the studio; one had been hastily half-closed and left with two pencils crossed over it rather precariously. That drew him in, the thought of half-completed pictures; Zoisite had something of a knack for simple sketching even though he rarely bothered with it. Still the rough and chaotic sketches that he never finished had a vibrancy about them that set Kunzite's mind spinning in a manner he never would have thought he would appreciate, and he wondered if all artists were capable of drawing in such a fashion.

Flipping through the book from the beginning, he found dozens of sketches of a pretty girl; a glance upward showed him that they were studies that the artist had then used in the paintings of a beautiful woman with similar features. She was a popular subject, starring often with a dark-haired man upon the stage of many canvasses. He might had dwelt longer on the odd familiarity, the flash of recognition that he felt while looking at them, if it wasn't for the picture he found on the last used page of the sketch book. It was one he had obviously distracted her from working on when he had knocked upon the door.

The lean and beautiful figure depicted upon the smooth page in smooth lines was Zoisite.

"…oh, he's very pretty, isn't he?" That was the artist, setting down a tray of tea on the small table behind him. "I…I only saw him in passing, but I couldn't get him out of my head. If only I could remember where I saw him."

Kunzite turned about, still holding the sketch book firmly in one hand. He did not notice it, but he would have been shocked to know that his hand was faintly trembling "You can."

"Can I?" The artist laughed, the sound still nervous; even with her artist's detachment she was still obviously ill at ease with this beautiful man in her home. "That would be wonderful. I have a picture in my head that is crying out for his presence, but I need to see him again--"

Her tea-cup clattered to the floor, shattered into a dozen and more pieces at her slippered feet.

Kunzite pressed his fingers harder against her temples, felt her body stiffen beneath his touch as he sent another jolt of energy through her, felt his mind expand as he threw out dark tendrils into her brain.

Push through a million worthless memories and find those repressed! 

There was no way to accurately describe the sensations that he did and did not feel as he sifted through her memories as a child sifts through sand while building castles. Still, her mind was organised enough that it made it easier than he thought it would be to locate her hidden memories of Zoisite. The moon-stick had not erased them, far from it in fact; it had merely squirreled them away to a place where the artist would not think to look for them.

Kunzite, however, was very good at finding exactly what he looked for.

Yumeno Yumemi collapsed to the ground; Kunzite scarcely heard her fall. Before she even hit the floor he was gone, reappearing scarce seconds later in the deserted construction site where she had last seen the devious form of the shitennou who had stolen her nijizuishou.

He followed Zoisite's trail easily from the entrance to one of the beams upon the outer reaches of the half-constructed building, but it all stopped there. The trace energies told him exactly who had been there only the night before, even while not one of them remained now. It was not unusual for the trail of the senshi to cut off abruptly – they obviously changed into their civilian forms after completing their battles, which left no such clues – but Zoisite could not mask himself in such a fashion. It made no sense, but it was simple fact all the same: the trail was gone.

Zoisite had fought the senshi, had fought Kamen…and then had simply disappeared.

* * *

Usagi stopped suddenly, holding the bag before her with both hands. When Mamoru gave her a questioning look, she frowned a little, looked away.

"What is it?"

With a sigh, she took one hand and rummaged around in one of her pockets. To his surprise, she almost promptly held out a small golden object, managing to look both apologetic and rebellious. "You know, I think I should give this back to you."

Mamoru felt the world contract about him, as if all of a sudden it was only made of him, Usagi, and the street lamp that they stood beneath. "…the star locket. I…I thought I'd lost it…"

"You dropped it, at the cemetery. I picked it up, I just…." Embarrassed, obviously because she had kept it without saying anything, Usagi found it impossible to meet his eyes. The way she stared at the ground, shuffling her feet in her flat school shoes, only muffled a voice that was already very quiet. "Where did you get it from?"

He took it from her, the weight and shape of it deeply familiar in his palm. He didn't realise his hand was shaking until he tightened his fingers about the golden locket. "I don't know."

"The princess, maybe?" Usagi looked up then, her smile bright even though her voice sounded like it was cracking the way support beams do when placed under too much stress. "That's why I thought I should give it back to you. Because…if you're a prince…maybe you were her prince, you know?"

Mamoru held up the locket to the streetlight, as if he were trying to get a better look at it; it caught the moonlight instead as he popped the catch and started the little music box inside tinkling away. "You think that?" he asked, thoughtful and distant as the mournful little tune swept over him.

"Yeah, I guess." It hurt to watch Mamoru so entranced by the music of the locket; Usagi couldn't help but wonder why it hurt so much to see him like this, why it made her ache all over. After all, even though he was Tuxedo Kamen, he was still Chiba Mamoru, and she'd only had a crush on one of them…and the other drove her bonkers! "Isn't that the way things work in fairytales?" she said quietly, trying to shove all the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings into a hole deep inside her heart. "The prince saves the princess, marries her, and they all live happily ever after?"

The laugh Mamoru gave at this was wry, but his eyes were kind as he snapped the locket shut, looked back at Usagi. "It would help if I knew where she was, of course."

Usagi swallowed at the kindness that washed over her like a warm wave, made her entire skin feel like it was warmly, fuzzily alive. She wondered if Mamoru knew how handsome he could be when he was actually acting something like Tuxedo Kamen. "We'll find her," she said, the deep conviction in her voice surprising even herself as she tried to shove all thoughts as to Mamoru's attractiveness firmly aside.

"Yes. We will." Mamoru smiled back at her, shifted under the street-lamp so that it gave his dark hair highlights of blue and silver. "I have to say, odan…Usagi-san, that I think what you did was pretty crazy, but maybe it'll do us some good after all. And if it helps us find the princess, it'll be doing a LOT of good."

"I hope so," and she kicked a nearby stone with one foot. It skittered away, scarcely avoiding a rather expensive car parked at the curb. "I didn't mean to do anything dumb."

"I'm sure you didn't," he replied even as he thanked whatever gods out there protected expensive cars from stones kicked by moody little Senshi. He couldn't resist adding a kind: "You've got a good heart, you know that?"

Usagi wrinkled her nose a little, but then smiled broadly bare seconds later. "I think so."

"You should know so," and the words were entirely affectionate. If that didn't make Usagi's already addled mind more confused, what certainly did was the next move he made. "Keep the locket."

She stared down at the golden locket he was pressing into her small palm, the gold of the necklace cool against skin that felt entirely too warm. "What?"

"You look like you'd look after it better than me – I've already lost it once right?" With a laugh, he then added wryly: "Besides, it's a girl's locket. A girl should have it." She ducked away as he ruffled her hair suddenly, but he still got a decent handful of her hair for a fleeting moment. "And you're certainly a little girl, senshi or not."

"Don't!" she complained, but she didn't let go of the locket, or try to push it back into his hand.

"Hey, I meant that kindly," he told her, laughing outright at the poked out tongue he got for this comment.

"Could have fooled me!" she huffed, though looking down at the locket – which had popped open again to start playing the pretty tune – made her smile almost wistfully. The expression seemed too old for her altogether, made Mamoru's mind wonder something that he could not quite pin down. "But…thank-you."

He sounded more nonchalant than he really felt when he said: "Well, we're all allies now, right?"

Usagi closed the locket, gave Mamoru a questioning look. "Including Zoisite?"

"As long as he leaves my windows alone from now on," he answered wryly, trying to ruffle her hair again; she was oddly too quick for him, being such a klutz generally. The missed attempt at touching her hair again bothered him far more than he knew it should. Even when he tried to ignore it, he still looked at the way her golden hair caught the moonlight and remembered the silken feel of it beneath his fingers.

He was making to start walking again when Usagi interrupted the action with a quiet: "You ever like just looking at the stars, Mamoru-san?"

"Sometimes," he said slowly, trying to gauge what she meant by the question. "But they…no. Only sometimes."

Usagi met his eyes as she dropped her own from the sky, flipped him a little peace sign that made her look very young indeed, and almost unbearably cute. "Hey, you can say what you were going to say. I won't laugh."

"I wasn't afraid you were going to laugh, odango atama." The reply was light but his eyes were heavy as he came to stand beside her just outside of the light circle cast by the street-lamp. Even with the ambient lighting of the night-time city, they could still seem what seemed like the entire universe of stars as they looked up at the sky together. "It's just that…they make me sad. I think it's because they make me think of her, and I can't stand the thought of not knowing that she is all right, that someone's looking out for her, protecting her…loving her."

"I like looking at the stars," Usagi said very softly, "because it makes me feel like someone is doing all of those things for me."

The silence between them was electric as their eyes met and Mamoru realised he could see not only the moon, but every single star reflected in the deep blue of Usagi's wide eyes.

"…you know, you didn't correct me," he said breathlessly as he looked away, tried to get the vision of all of those stars out of his head.

"What?" she asked, sounding as dazed as he did.

Mamoru looked at the ground, and then at the shopping bag he carried, loaded with meat and vegetables and rice. It was so blessedly familiar that he was surprised he didn't hug it for all his was worth and thank it for merely existing. "I called you odango atama and you didn't squawk like you usually do."

"Oh!" Usagi looked at her own shopping bag, and Mamoru began to question the sense of giving her the bag that had the sweets in it. "Guess I just figure that you're just never going to stop."

When she met his eyes again, he felt the return of that odd feeling, could not help his words. "I would if you really wanted me to, you know."

This time it was Usagi who looked away, back up to the apartment block they were only metres away from. Skipping lightly, she said: "Come on, let's go inside. I bet the others are hungry."

For a moment he only watched her skip away from him; he then shook his head and followed her inside. Falling in love with a moon princess from a dream was one thing – finding a fourteen year old part-time super-heroine unbearably adorable was quite another.

* * *

"…so Beryl wants the ginzuishou to awaken Metallia…who is her master?" Usagi asked around a mouthful of rice, earning a rather disgusted look from Zoisite. The shitennou had already proved that not only was he a rather finicky eater, but he ate what he felt like in a fashion so formal that he probably could have attended a royal reception and fooled everyone into thinking he was a gentleman indeed.

"She was the master of us all. Hence why I've got no power anymore. You shut that off." Setting aside a barely touched plate of nigiri sushi, Zoisite leaned back on the couch, turned his attention out the window. "Which is probably why I no longer feel the urge to rip out those little blonde pigtails and beat you to death with them. Metallia – whose entire presence animates the Dark Kingdom even as she lies dormant – amplifies negative emotion."

Usagi at least swallowed her next monster mouthful before speaking again. "That must have been so horrible to live with," she said in a low voice, eyes very wide.

"On the contrary." Wryly Zoisite smoothed his hair and raised an eyebrow at the baffled blonde. "It was glorious."

"What?" Rei asked, her own plate hardly touched either. Already her fingers were fingering a ward paper, as if she had to throw one at Zoisite every hour on the hour to make sure that the moon-stick's cleansing influence wasn't wearing off already.

"You wouldn't understand," and his frustration was rich and thick. "You don't…you just wouldn't understand. There's…a beauty in darkness." The words obviously weren't exactly the ones he wanted, but he seemed unable to locate the ones that would lead the Senshi to understand what he tried to express. Luna frankly doubted that those words existed at all.

Mako took a sip of the green tea she held in her hands and gave Zoisite a doubtful look. "So how do we know you won't want it back?"

"Because that healing stick of yours wiped away whatever vulnerability I possessed that Metallia used to draw me in. I don't remember much, I told you. But isn't it obvious, what happened?"

Luna was the one who spoke, her voice thoughtful as she traced out her hypothesis aloud. "You lived in the Silver Millennium, and were a part of Endymion-sama's realm, one way or another. Beryl and Metallia exploited some seed of darkness in you and that then elevated you to the level of a shitennou."

Mamoru's voice was flat from where he leaned against one of the non-broken windows. "Corruption."

"I'd assume it was willing," Zoisite said almost without discernible shame, meeting the eyes of the "prince" he had presumably betrayed back in a time no-one could really remember, for reasons that none of them would ever possibly understand. "I didn't hate living there. I loved it. Of course, there were reasons–" He abruptly stopped speaking, his cheeks burning with sudden high colour. "It doesn't matter," he muttered under his breath rapidly, looking for the cup that held his own tea.

"What doesn't matter?" Usagi asked curiously, only to be met with stony silence from the shitennou.

Ami coughed, forcing Zoisite to turn around and look at her. "So someone will start looking for the nijizuishou in your absence?" she asked, already looking slightly embarrassed to be under that green-eyes scrutiny again.

"Oh, yes. I imagine Beryl will have already thrown her tantrum over my disappearance and found someone a hell of a lot more reliable to get the job done." This didn't seem to bother him terribly much, at least not in the way that any of them thought it should. Still there _was_ something askew in his eyes that was difficult to define, even more difficult to actually prove as being there.

"…but she's looking for you?" asked Mako doubtfully.

"Of course."

Ami coughed up a little of her tea, looked even more embarrassed as she wiped her mouth with a napkin. "But aren't you worried she'll find you?"

"If she could have, she already would have." Zoisite took a long draught from his own cup, and then set the empty porcelain aside. "I may not have liked her much even when I was on her payroll, but she knows what she is doing." His eyes flared with sudden withheld emotion, but he seemed to get in back in check quickly as he shook his head. "Besides, he would have found me already if he was able to…"

"He?" Usagi asked, looking up from demolishing the last of the odango.

The sigh he gave was more tellingly melancholy than he might have preferred. "The one you're likely to run into next time a nijizuishou turns up. The strongest of us."

"Another shitennou?" Mamoru asked, stepping forward so that he might examine every word Zoisite gave up more closely.

"The last of us." The name was said quietly, reverently. "Kunzite-sama."

Ami let out a long breath she hadn't been quite aware she was holding. "He's more powerful than you?"

Zoisite laughed, a short sharp bark that made her jump. "By far, Ami-san. And more so than Nephrite, before you ask."

"Jadeite?" Rei added even as Mamoru echoed the sentiment.

"Jadeite was…well, he wasn't a weakling, to be fair to him. But he was not in Kunzite-sama's league."

Ami, who was by now holding the little Mercury computer open on her lap, frowned at what she saw written there; she was actually monitoring the conversation with a voice-activated lie detector and while Zoisite was telling the truth, the other emotions it was beginning to pick up were mildly disturbing. "Whatever happened to him?"

"Jadeite?" Zoisite blinked in surprise that they should care, and then shrugged as he released the information. "Beryl locked him in Hard Thought for being useless. Hell of a demotion, I'll tell you."

Usagi looked shocked, even though she had seen Zoisite become indirectly responsible for the death of Nephrite. "He's dead?"

"I bet he wishes he was," he said, but shook his head when Usagi opened her mouth to ask more questions. "He won't be bothering you. Beryl doesn't recycle."

"You know," Rei said quietly as she met Zoisite's cool gaze, "you don't seem to care much."

"Are you sure you'd be able to tell even if I did?"

"Ami-chan?"

The blue-haired Senshi flushed under the look Zoisite gave her. "I'm not sure."

Usagi was frowning, playing with her chopsticks as she watched Rei, Ami and Zoisite apparently decide on whether or not to get into an argument or not. "…Zoisite?"

The shitennou stopped staring at Ami and moved the unerring gaze to Usagi. "Ye-es?"

"Can you find the crystals still?"

He laughed outright at that, shook his head. "I doubt it. Without a link to Metallia, my trying to use the kurozuishou would be about as effective as going fishing with a paperweight and no line."

"…rats." Mournfully she poked at the carpet until Mamoru reached down to remove the chopsticks from her grip. Zoisite just shook his head.

"Kunzite-sama will find the nijizuishou. You'll just have to challenge him." With a smirk on his face that nobody really appreciated much, he curled his legs underneath him and said: "Good luck with _that_."

"But can you help us?"

"Probably not."

Rei's voice was ice-cold. "Why not?"

Zoisite looked like he had any number of smart-ass replies to that, but the one he gave was quietly sensible. "He'll still be looking for me."

"What, to have you punished? We won't let him!" Usagi declared, standing up to strike something approaching one of her Sailor Moon poses. "If you're on our side, you're one of us – and Senshi never let friends be taken by the enemy!"

"You don't understand," he muttered, standing up again. "Excuse me. I need to use the bathroom."

Usagi, her pose wilting as the shitennou stepped smartly out of the room, looked slightly baffled. "…so shitennou need the bathroom, too?"

Rei resisted the temptation to start banging her head against the nearest wall. From the looks of it, Luna and Mamoru were about as close as she was to doing it themselves, too.

* * *

"And where is my wayward shitennou, Kunzite?"

"I do not know, my Queen." He bowed his head, and waited for the tirade to begin, for his ears to ring with her screamed displeasure, for his body to tremble under the weight inordinate amounts of energy she was capable of flinging around in her worse moods.

She surprised him with her calm acceptance of this intelligence. "I don't like this. Even he should not be foolish enough to defy me in this way." The low voice expressed extreme ire, but the tap of her fingers on the globe before her was oddly restrained as she spoke in a deceptively conversational tone. "Tell me, Kunzite, did you ever teach him to shield from me?"

"No, my Queen."

Beryl smiled, and it was not at all pleasant to see the fangs show prominently over her too-red lips. "Do you lie to me?"

"I do not. To be frank, I doubt Zoisite has the…patience to learn such a complicated sorcerous manoeuvre." And it was true, much as he didn't want to admit that even he couldn't teach Zoisite some tricks. "He will focus on a task to the exclusion of all else when he wishes, but that would have taxed even his limits as one of your shitennou."

"Perhaps. I wonder, however." With that, she waved a hand in dismissal. "Forget him, and forget his mission. You have greater work to be doing."

He blinked silver-blue eyes, but that was the only external expression of his deep surprise. "Surely there is no work greater than the location of the ginzuishou?"

"Do you forget it is in pieces? Your appointed task was to calculate how to restore the facets, blend them into one. Is this not correct?"

"It is correct," he agreed, lowering his eyes to floor in fear that they might betray him.

"I thought so." And even though he was not directly looking at her, he could hear her twisted smile. "This does make things more complicated. I have no wish to take you away from your responsibilities, and yet I have no other – wait."

"Yes?" he asked, looking up again to see Beryl apparently fishing a wild idea out of thin air and finding it rather intriguing indeed.

She waved another hand imperiously. "I will give more thought to this. Continue your work on the amalgamation of the nijizuishou, and report in the morning."

"But who will locate—"

"Report in the morning." Beryl's words were oddly patient, but the flashing of her eyes indicated that that patience was swiftly running out. "I will have something to tell you then."

And so, that was how Kunzite found himself returning to his libraries, to the histories of the ginzuishou written sketchily in tomes as old as the Kingdom itself. Still, so much of it was missing, like Beryl had torn great chunks of undesirable history from the tomes and tossed it into oblivion.

_She manipulates us_.

And even though he knew that perhaps best of all her shitennou, he could not help but muse upon the great extent of the power this world gave him…and to lose that, surely, would be a fate worse than eternal damnation.

* * *

"Can't sleep?"

Zoisite looked up from where he was perched on the edge of the balcony, raised at eyebrow at the half-dressed Mamoru. "Would you be able to, in my position?"

"I don't think I can even imagine what it would be like to be in your position," he said wryly, in a voice low enough not to awaken the sleeping Mako inside; while Rei had had to return home at last, the Jovan Senshi had stayed again, this time with Luna curled up at her feet on the borrowed futon. Pushing his sleep-mussed hair out of tired eyes, Mamoru then remarked quietly: "Which is possibly why I'm out here."

Zoisite laughed, wrapped his arms more tightly about the knees he had drawn up to his chin. Admittedly Mamoru had no clue how Zoisite was balancing up there like that without his telekinetic powers, but then he just assumed some people were not only unafraid of heights, but completely disrespectful of them. "You want to know when I'm going to turn on you and ruin your lives, yes?"

"Yes." No point in beating around the bush, after all. "Rei-san thinks you're hiding something."

Snorting, Zoisite then proceeded to dangle one long leg over the side of the balcony. Tracing odd patterns on the concrete with one bare toe, he said idly: "Big talk coming from a bunch of people who've been hiding things for who knows how long."

"We had to."

Zoisite stopped the nervous movement, narrowed his eyes at Mamoru. "You think I don't have to?"

"I wouldn't know. But what I do need to know is this – are you going to turn on us for your own purposes?"

"You think I wouldn't lie about it if I were going to?" Zoisite asked, looking rather taken aback by the patent absurdity of the question presented to him.

"It wouldn't surprise me." Stepping closer to the shitennou on his balcony, he leaned back on the cool concrete and raised an eyebrow at him. "I just don't think you will."

"Why do you want to trust me?" The question was baffled but suspicious as Zoisite adjusted his long hair again, a hint of outright annoyance in his voice.

Mamoru looked back inside, to the dark-haired girl sleeping on the second futon. "I trust Sailor Moon."

"I would say maybe you're a little misguided after meeting her Terran identity, but…I think I know what you mean."

The quiet confusion in his voice spoke volumes to Mamoru, who said in a low voice: "You're not what you were. Even I can tell that."

Hopping down from the ledge, Zoisite stretched his lithe body, silk moving easily over the slender limbs. "Looked long and hard, have you?"

Vaguely uncomfortable at the show Zoisite was apparently putting on for him, he couldn't help but look away. Several times he had garnered the impression that Zoisite had…an affection for men, but he admittedly didn't want to know about it if he really did. "…there's just something about you….like this."

"Like what?" Zoisite asked, reaching back to begin braiding his loose hair for sleep.

"Like a human." Mamoru looked at Zoisite carefully, and then shook his head in defeat. "I feel like I've known and trusted you before."

"You probably have. I think I have to point out, however, that you were obviously wrong once. What makes you think you won't be wrong again?"

"The fact you can't stop calling me Endymion-sama?"

That made Zoisite pause, even though he quickly finished braiding his hair seconds later. "Thin hope, my prince."

"It's still a hope." Watching the smaller man stride across the little balcony to the door, he found himself saying in a voice near-desperate: "Zoisite, we can help you."

That stopped him, made him turn back with a frown. "Help me?"

"If you need our help, we'll give it. We can protect you from the Dark Kingdom, if you'll help us find the princess and her crystal, and bring it down."

"You're going to bring down the Dark Kingdom?" A flash of unexpected pain darkened his eyes, but the mocking smile that crossed his face next made it hard to believe it had ever been there. "Good luck with that."

"Will you help us?" He knew that maybe he was pressing too hard on the displaced shitennou, but the thought of the princess…safe…protected…at his side with the knowledge he needed in one hand and his heart in the other…and he did not care if he pushed Zoisite hard enough to make him fall. "You…you'll be able to live free, you know. Liberation. Isn't that worth it?"

The way Zoisite held his head as he cocked it at Mamoru seemed to indicate that it hurt. "Perhaps I cannot risk becoming involved."

"I think you already are." He let a heavy hand fall on a slim shoulder, and he could feel Zoisite trembling beneath it. "Think about it. We could help each other."

Mamoru then pushed past him, disappeared inside. Left alone on the balcony, Zoisite tightened his hands into fists and willed himself not to scream. Rather, he just looked to the sky, to the moon, and cursed the bright light that made his eyes water.

_Yes, I could help you…perhaps, if I ever work out who I am, what I used to be. _He slammed his fist down onto the concrete, wished for the old power with which he could have shattered stone with a thought. _But what I am to do with this life you offer me, if I cannot share it with the only one I'd ever throw it away for…?_


	4. Just Like Everybody Else

**Authors notes: **Kia ora! Just a quick note to say…well. Chapter four. Things are moving on, aren't they? Once again things are quite chit-chatty in this chapter as I finish the set-up and really launch into things. I wanted to do some serious editing to this chapter when I wrote it, to be honest, but it just didn't quite work. I couldn't bear to cut any of it out. 

At any rate – if you're out there and reading…thank you so much for coming along for the ride. I'd love to hear from you, too – what works and what doesn't is something that's always good for me to know. Personally I'm not sure how my characterisations of Usagi, Rei and Kunzite are working out, but then I can't help but think – they've got a lot of time to prove themselves yet.

In the meantime, I'll just let Zoisite snark his way through another chapter.

None of these characters or situations belong to me. I'm just playing, after all.

**Four: Just Like Everybody Else**

  


_In which Beryl recruits, but not from the human resources department/Kunzite inherits Zoisite's job but not the implement of it/the girls hunt for clues/white is made from black and/the fifth nijizuishou carrier is identified._

"I have found a replacement for that worthless weasel."

"Replacement?" Though Kunzite was neither in the habit of displaying surprise nor of challenging his queen, the ensuing words slipped out as carelessly as one of Zoisite's characteristic smirks. "But there's no-one--"

"Question me again," Beryl said idly, fingertips moving the sharp nails gently over the shimmering surface of her globe, "and I'll find you much less…fulfilling tasks to attend to."

There was nothing to say to this and thus Kunzite remained silent, though he had a fair idea she was bluffing. In the end he was all that she had left, besides her legions of near-brainless youma. To their limited credit, some of them actually _could_ think their ways out of the proverbial paper bag, but plenty of them could just as easily spend eternity in one.

It appeared that Beryl had convinced herself that she did have another commanding officer besides Kunzite, as she announced: "I have to prepare the replacement myself and it will take time." Elegantly she shifted her body in her throne, the movement as sinuous as that of a serpent. "In the interim, you'll just have to pick up where your protégé so thoughtfully left off. The fool ran with the kurozuishou so you'll just have to make up for it. I am modifying another crystal, though it was always Nephrite who was the artisan there."

With the ensuing disgusted flick of one of Beryl's hands, a nearby youma found itself abruptly lacking its left arm; she paid it no heed as it started screaming in agony. Kunzite himself did not twitch at the brief spectacle; it bled itself out before long, or at least it stopped screaming. Beryl's habit of mindlessly killing youma was just another part of life in the Dark Kingdom, especially when someone had irritated her as much as Zoisite had.

Beryl looked down at her nails, tapped them thoughtfully upon the sphere that could concentrate so much of her spirit and energy. "Another lovely situation fostered upon us by the mind of an ignorant child," she mused, and her frown deepened.

Biting his tongue kept Kunzite from saying something he already knew he would regret.

Looking up quite suddenly, Beryl gave him a smile that might have been made her extraordinarily beautiful, if not for the dark aura that so constantly surrounded her. "I'm sure you can improvise until then. For now I need to have you concentrating upon more worthy matters, but watch the Senshi. I doubt the little girls can find the nijizuishou on their own, but I do not like Sailor Moon wielding the dead Queen's moon-stick."

The way her lips and tongue distorted the reference to the former Queen of the Moon belied her great disgust at having to speak of the deceased silver lady. Now was certainly no time to annoy Beryl further, though perhaps the twitching form of the armless youma on the floor might have pointed out that that was obvious earlier, if it still had any life left to do so. With this firmly in mind, Kunzite said humbly only this: "Of course, my Queen."

"Of course," she echoed, looking decidedly irritated, perhaps because Kunzite was giving her no reason to actually take out her frustration on him. "I am relying on you to find the next nijizuishou, Kunzite – failure is certainly not an option."

_It's not an option, Queen Beryl – it's a strong possibility_. Kunzite was however the most tactful and diplomatic of all the shitennou, so of course his words were far more sensible than that. Still he did have to wonder what was making him say them given he knew what kind of mood she was in right at this moment. "I must inform that I don't feel it possible to locate the carriers so easily. It is logical to be able to sense them when they are in close proximity, but widen the range and the likelihood of this decreases exponentially."

Beryl snorted, less annoyed than he had thought she should be. "Take it now if you must, fool," and a crystal somewhat similar to Zoisite's emerged from the ball with deceptive ease. "The range of it is nothing like its predecessor, meaning you will have to descend to earth to actually use it, but it seems to me that the carriers are indeed concentrated entirely in Tokyo."

"That really narrows the field indeed." And the words were spoken without thought, with enough bitterness that for a moment Kunzite was not even aware that he had spoken them himself. It was, in fact, as if Zoisite was standing beside him and muttering a snide commentary as had been his occasional, nearly suicidal habit.

The irony of this was apparently not lost on the Queen as she launched into a brief closing tirade. "Sometimes I wonder if you picked up the habit of smart-mouthing me from that idiot protégé of yours. If you did, it is indeed unfortunate. I no longer wish to hear him mentioned in my presence, unless he is being hauled in for my judgement. Dismissed."

Kunzite looked momentarily like he wished to complain, but schooled his features in obedience. "Of course, my Queen." He bowed his head, and vanished in a brief glow of blue light.

The wave of one long, pale arm dismissed the gathered youma from the throne room; not even the carcass of the dead youma remained, as it had been borne away by its neighbours. There was no comradeship in the gesture, however. It was likely as not that the youma would be ending the day on someone else's dinner plate. This fact was of no consequence to the Queen of the realm, as Beryl turned her attention to the task before her. Spells were complicated things to weave, and even more complicated to unravel…if, of course, one wanted the one bound to resume his former existence.

And yes, Beryl certainly wanted him back in one useful piece. Like the others, he had belonged to her…and even in her direst fits of displeasure, Beryl knew that they would always be a necessary part of what she had yet to accomplish.

Besides, they were hers now – and as far as she was concerned, they always would be.

* * *

Mamoru's apartment had some interesting décor now that Ami and Zoisite had spent the morning taping up small pieces of cardboard and putting them over the gaping holes in the glass. What had surprised Ami the most about the little task, however, was not that Zoisite had helped her without complaint, but that he had suggested doing it in the first place.

She had to wonder what had brought on his good mood. In theory it could at least be partly because Mamoru had locked himself away in his room to work on some of his university studies, which had obviously been rather rudely interrupted by the addition of a sudden house guest. Still, when he had found that Ami was taking the day off school to act as his baby-sitter rather than Mako or Rei, he had seemed rather _pleased_ about it.

Really, it was probably better just not to think about it.

Sitting back on her slippered heels, Ami admired the neat patchwork of glass and cardboard they had made of Mamoru's poor windows. "I guess that's something."

"I don't think it takes anything away from the ambience it had before, certainly," Zoisite remarked rather wryly, tugging absently on the end of his long braid. "Less draughty, mind you. It'll do."

Ami nodded, looking away from the thoughtful face of Zoisite. If someone had told her last week that she'd be skipping school to fix Chiba Mamoru's windows with the man who had tried to enslave Urawa, she would had asked her mother to refer them to a good psychiatrist. Then again, her life _had_ become increasingly odd since the day she went to cram school an ordinary girl, and came out a sailor fuku-clad heroine.

"Yen for your thoughts?"

"Huh?" Ami nearly squeaked, caught out by the smooth question of the man sprawled gracefully beside her.

"Never mind. I don't think they're worth that much." One elegant hand barely covered his mouth as he yawned massively. After indulging in a long stretch that was oddly feline in its execution, Zoisite then looked longingly back to his disarrayed futon. "What I wouldn't give to go back to sleep."

"Why don't you?" Ami asked sensibly, gathering up the last of the cardboard and the masking tape. "I'm just going to go back to the homework I was doing before you woke up, anyway. I'll be quiet. I'll even close the curtains and work in the corner, if you like."

Zoisite propped his chin up on one tight fist and gave her a searching look that made her swallow uncomfortably, and concentrate a little too hard on a task that really didn't require much thought. Besides, she had picked up all the tape and cardboard already. "You're really too nice, you know that?"

Pushing herself to her feet with one hand, the other clutching her things to her small breasts, Ami found she couldn't look at the former shitennou. "I just…like to make things work," she murmured, taking the things back to the cupboard she had found them in earlier.

"Yes. I sort of guessed that." The way in which he watched her, as if when he looked he looked right through her, made Ami uncomfortable. Even the sound of his voice, deeply thoughtful now, made her feel like he not only knew everything about her, but that she _wanted_ him to know all of it. "I used to know someone a little like you – so ordered and calm and sensible. Not as nice, though."

Ami closed the cupboard quietly, finally looked around at him from where she knelt across the room. "Was he a friend of yours?" she asked softly, meeting his eyes for a fleeting moment.

"No. No, not a friend." Looking away, he seemed as far away as the ends of the world as he gazed out across the late autumn sun hovering in the smog above the bustling city.

A sharp pain made her look down at her hands; she was surprised to see that she was holding them so tightly that her short nails were biting into her skin. Any attempt to relax them only made them tremble. With a sigh, she looked back up at the Zoisite caught adrift in his confused memories, and gingerly changed the subject. "…would you like something to eat before you go back to sleep? Some breakfast, maybe?"

"Too nice," he repeated while still watching the dirtied sky, and then shook his head. His eyes were as clear as the sky was not when he looked over at her, the colour of Chinese jade. "I'm not going to go back to sleep after all. I think maybe I'll read for a while." Having said this, he elegantly pushed himself to his bare feet and padded over to Mamoru's insanely packed bookshelf.

Ami watched him select a heavy text, looked across at her own scattered notes. "…can I ask you to help me with something?"

"Your homework?" he asked, indicating what she had been working on before he had woken up, what she was looking at now. "Oh, I don't know. They could construe that as cheating, and while I personally think cheating's all well and good when you need to get ahead in life, I know your type don't tend to swallow that one too well."

Why did she always want to smile when he said such things, even when she wasn't entirely sure that he was joking? "No, I meant…the nijizuishou."

At least he was to the point, his answer as fast and sharp as the snap of a whip. "Nope." After a pause to reflect on what he had said and the startled look on Ami's pale face, he did at least add: "Sorry."

"But—" she said weakly.

"_Drop it_."

"Okay." Her voice was very small as she drooped her head, quietly moved over to her collection of books. Zoisite watched her, wondering for a moment why he cared that she looked so miserable at being rejected so completely and so quickly. Only twenty seconds of this passed before he spoke again; he always had been an impulsive creature.

"Ami-san?"

"Yes?"

Those blue eyes, calm now, seemed to stare right through him. They were like…too much like…and then nothing like his eyes at all. "Too nice," he finally repeated, but didn't say anything more. With hands that trembled just barely enough to be noticeable he returned to the thick textbook on genetic engineering he had taken from Mamoru's extremely overstocked bookshelf.

Mystified and flushing slightly, Ami returned to her work on complex equations involving imaginary numbers, even though her mind couldn't quite let go of the thought that she should be using the well of knowledge she had before her to work out how to locate the next nijizuishou carrier. Still, she was fairly clear on one thing – Zoisite might tend to be slightly more polite with her than the others, but she was not the kind of person who would be able to force him into doing anything.

No. That was better left to people like "Endymion-sama."

In the end she didn't bother pressing it even when Mamoru came back in, having used his time away from the pair in the living room to organise his troubled schedule and study. Setting aside her books, Ami offered to make him something before he had to go to the university to do some on-campus work he could not avoid; Zoisite barely looked up when she asked him if he wanted anything. A non-committal "Mmm" seemed to be the best thing she could get out of him when he was so embroiled in a world made up of four base pairs, some sugar and a bit of phosphate.

When lunch was presented Zoisite only picked at his, eating perhaps two or three forkfuls of the sweet pancakes Ami had so thoughtfully made. Mamoru was the complete opposite, demolishing her fare with a gusto that made her blink; the only thing that allowed it to make sense was the way he kept checking his watch throughout the whole operation. When he had at last set down his utensils and thanked Ami for the meal, he then set about issuing a solid warning.

"Don't you dare lay one finger on her, Zoisite. I won't be far away, and I'll be back here in a flash if you try anything." Mamoru shrugged into his jacket by the door, toeing off his slippers as he did so. "I can sense when _any_ of the Senshi are in trouble, not just Sailor Moon, all right?"

Zoisite snorted, brushing out his long hair where he sat cross-legged on one of the couches. "Now why would I want to hurt Ami-san? She's about the only one who had managed to be civil to me for more than ten seconds running."

Mamoru paused, and dropped his voice further. The low tone of it combined with the serious slash of blue in his face that were his eyes emphasised his gravity. "I'm warning you – hurt her, and you'll regret it for a very long time indeed."

"I wouldn't harm a hair of the head of any of your little harem girls," Zoisite returned almost kindly, blinking innocently at his host across the room. With an exasperated sigh, Mamoru leaned down to finish tugging on his shoes, and combed his fingers through his hair one last time. Ami had to admit that it hadn't helped – he still looked distinctly harassed.

Picking up his case, Mamoru made as if to leave without saying anything more – it seemed that temptation was too strong. He tossed back over his shoulder: "And try to make yourself useful, would you?"

"What would you like me to do, Endymion-sama?" asked Zoisite in a tone of complete boredom, having by now turned the television on. Thankfully it was still on mute. "Clean the kitchen floor with a toothbrush?"

"It'd be a start, I suppose."

The reply was as innocent as his big green eyes. "But yours is the only toothbrush in the house."

"Oh, forget it."

Ami watched Mamoru slam out of the apartment, winced. A quick glance over at the house-guest assured her that Zoisite was undisturbed by the exchange, channel-surfing in silence with the mute button still on. She wondered why she wasn't more nervous about being left alone with him, given that she was the least martially-inclined of her sister Senshi, but…

_ …like I told Mamoru-san…I just don't think he'd hurt me._

The television flicked off, catching her attention; a look up showed her that Zoisite was tossing the remote aside and tugging his knees up thoughtfully beneath his chin. Though he did not look in the mood for a conversation – in fact he looked rather pensive – Ami's tongue got away from her.

"I'm not a harem girl, you know." Even though she was startled to have found herself saying such a thing, Ami did try to hide it. The distant impression she got from Zoisite, however, was that he could see right through her.

"Of course you're not. You're a little too smart for that." Giving her an appraising look from the couch, Zoisite tossed his loose hair and smiled in a manner than would have been called snide if it hadn't been as amiable as it was. "Of course, though, in some cultures the only way a woman could have opportunity to use her brains as you do was by becoming a courtesan."

"I'm not one of those, either," she said, surprising herself with the firmness of her voice. She did lose that a moment later when curiosity took over as the dominant emotion. "But I didn't realise you knew any Terran history."

"You'd probably be surprised," he observed, cocking his head in a rather judgmental fashion. A deep blush was creeping up the back of her neck when he remarked rather offhandedly: "You'd make a rather pretty geisha, though."

"Can we stop this conversation?" she asked in a voice barely kept level.

"Perhaps," he said, stretching out his long legs again. "If you'll admit that I'd actually be a far prettier geisha than you."

Ami couldn't help but laugh, though she personally thought it sounded a little hysterical. "What?"

"Say it."

"You'd be a much prettier geisha than me." Shaking her head, Ami looked back down at her work like it was all written in ancient Greek. "You're a little odd, Zoisite-san."

"The wonders of a moon-stick, I suppose."

Ami eventually managed to school her attention into returning to her homework, but Zoisite seemed very quickly bored by this. Within minutes he was prowling impatiently around the room; when she finally looked up he was picking at the roses in a vase on a small table and scattering the petals across the floor.

"Zoisite-san, is something bothering you?"

"You know, I really need some clean clothes," he said, by now picking at the shirt that was definitely beginning to look a little worse for wear. "I'm sure I must have several closets full of clothes – if you people would let me go home."

Ami's pen slowed a moment, but she forced it to pick up its former pace again. "I don't think it's such a good idea."

"So what am I supposed to do? Wear the same thing for three days running? No offence, Ami-san, but even someone like you should realise that _that_ is fashion suicide."

The pen halted at this, and she cursed her pale skin as it started to flush again; this time it was genuine embarrassment. "I'm not really into clothes."

"Really?" Zoisite asked, irony rich in his voice. "I had no idea."

Though she doubted the words were intentionally cruel, Ami couldn't help but feel the bite of them. Gnawing her lip, she said in a very light tone, one she hoped would not break: "…couldn't you like…borrow something from Mamoru-san, maybe?"

"Oh, Ami-san," and held his head in his left hand like it hurt him deeply. "And you've _seen_ that terrible green jacket he left the house wearing."

"What?"

"Let's just say that Endymion-sama would probably benefit from fashion tips from a blind man," came the tired reply, Zoisite once again pacing the floor like a caged panther.

Ami continued looking at the mess of symbols before her that was her homework, and tried to settle herself down a little. "Well, I can't take you home by myself. We'll have to wait for someone else to turn up."

"With bated breath," he said dryly, and threw himself back into a couch with a theatrical sigh. "I suppose we could always go back to your homework."

She didn't know what made her say it, given she was already feeling the stress of Zoisite's irritation crawling under her skin. But she did say it. "Or maybe you could help me with the nijizuishou."

Staring at the ceiling, his reply was fortunately half-bored rather than irritated. "I've already told you, I doubt I'd be any help to you." Even though he had sounded dismissive then, he suddenly looked across at her, hard. "Can I ask you something?"

Meeting his eyes at that moment was rather easier than she thought it should have been. "Will you ask me no matter what I say?"

Zoisite laughed at this, long and hard. Ami thought she might have joined in, if she hadn't been so damned surprised by how lovely his laugh really was. "You see, this is why I think I like you. Unlike the other Senshi and Endymion-sama, you actually listen to what I say." Ignored her rising blush – a blush that was rising for reasons totally different to the ones before – Zoisite continued. "You're right, I'd ask you no matter what you told me to do either way."

"So why ask?"

"I was always told that if I couldn't actually _be_ polite, at least I could pretend to be. Can't say it's a piece of advice I've always followed, but you know. The influence of some teachers is the kind you never forget."

Zoisite was referring to something that went further than what he was allowing her to know, but it was easy enough to pick up on the fact that he would not let her go any deeper, not now. Ami was left only with the real option of saying: "So what would you like to ask me?"

Returning to the conversation with a blink, he said: "If you hate me for what I tried to do to that friend of yours."

"…you mean…Urawa-kun?"

"Was that his name? I don't think I remember." The words were offhand and something about the way they were said made Ami strongly doubt their validity. "It's just this, Ami-san – of all the Senshi I've met thus far, I'm perhaps most intrigued by you. Don't ask me why, I most likely wouldn't tell you even if I knew. It is just that I refuse to make 'friends' with a girl when she might be inclined to stick a knife in my back the second I present it to her." A smile crossed his features then, a very beautiful one that might have been comforting if not for the accompanying words. "You see, that's _my_ job, and my job alone."

"I don't think I hate you," she replied all the same, meeting his eyes evenly.

"You don't think so?"

The scrutiny of his gaze made her want to turn away, but she fought it, kept to his strong gaze. "I've…never really thought about it. I mean, sure, you made me angry, but…I mean, you were just following orders, right?"

An amused expression curved his full lips into a smile that was deeply sarcastic. "It was just fortunate that I found the orders rather fun. I might not have followed them otherwise."

"Are you trying to make me hate you?" she asked quietly. It could have been entirely the wrong question, but the way that Zoisite's smile lightened seemed to suggest that it had indeed been the right one after all.

"Blunt. I like that. It seems that only the really smart ones figure out that that's the way to deal with me. Congratulations, Ami-san." With that he yawned, took a long sip from the tall glass of water he had earlier set upon the coffee table. "So you don't hate me, right?"

"No."

"Good to know. Can't say I hate you, either. I think even when I was filled with Metallia's little evils I didn't hate you all that much. You didn't tend to piss me off as much as Sailor Moon did." After a second, he raised one finger to his lips, and smirked broadly. "Oh, excuse my language, won't you?"

"No. I won't."

A snort of laughter was his first response to the prim refusal. "You'll have to. Can't help it, I'm afraid…but I'm glad to know we won't fall out at some future date because I tried to turn your little boyfriend into a youma." He paused there, and then added curiously: "He was your boyfriend, right?"

This blush immediately coloured what felt like her entire sheath of skin deep scarlet. "No!"

Her embarrassment barely seemed to register with him as he fingered his chin and gave her an appraising look. "Hmm. Pity. Everyone should have a boyfriend, after all."

"Everyone?" she squeaked, for even in her mortification she found his wording peculiar.

"Oh, yes," he confirmed, taking another long sip of his iced water.

"Even you?" she couldn't help but add.

"_Especially _me," he said with relish, finishing the glass of water. "And Ami-san, you do realise that you're vibrating, don't you?"

Stumped for a moment, Ami stared dumbly at him…until she realised that he wasn't speaking utter nonsense after all. "Oh! I linked Mamoru-san's phone to my computer…he's just txting me to ask if you've killed me yet," she explained as she took out the small blue gadget and flipped up the screen.

Zoisite rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Can I txt him back and tell him that I have?"

"No."

Casting his eyes over at her now, he had to snort. "No wonder they say you're no fun."

"Who says I'm no fun?" Ami asked idly as she tapped away at a reply to the actual question, which hadn't been as politely phrased as she'd indicated.

"_They_ do. And _They_ know a lot. What does else Endymion-sama say, anything else I need to worry my pretty little head about?"

"He'll be home in a couple of hours."

"Great. I'll set up a trip wire across the front door, shall I?"

Ami hit the key to send the reply, looked up at Zoisite with a strange glint in her eyes. "You really are very strange."

"Hey. You want help with that chemistry homework or not?"

"I don't really need it," she admitted with a grin that she couldn't actually manage to hide. Zoisite, fortunately, didn't appear to care.

"No. I don't suppose you do."

Cautiously she couldn't help but add: "But I do need help with the nijizuishou."

For a moment she thought she'd gone too far – the dark-blond man looked for a very real moment like he was about to explode. Slowly the tension left his long body however, and he spoke easily and calmly. "Look, let's just leave it until Endymion-sama gets back, all right?"

Given that almost-display of his still nasty temper, this was perfectly fine with Ami all of a sudden.

It was ninety minutes before Mamoru returned; about five minutes after he entered the apartment Rei called from her school on her communicator, interrupting the argument that had started between the two men. "I said I'd met the others at the shrine, so we I could do a reading," she explained as girls visibly milled behind her, ready to leave the school for the day. She gave Mamoru a hard look, adding: "You should come to the shrine."

"I think you should all let me go home," Zoisite announced from behind Mamoru, earning a sweatdrop from Ami and a sceptical look from Rei. "I mean, come on? These clothes? They were fine the first day I wore them, but this is just getting stupid."

"Not until we work out what is going on here," Mamoru said firmly.

Rei couldn't help but add her two cents. "Besides, you really want to go home? What will you do if they find you?"

Zoisite opened his mouth, then shut it quite suddenly. "Fine. I'll stay."

"Fast agreement," Mamoru observed with a raised eyebrow.

"You want me to disagree?" Zoisite asked politely, but the edge to the words suggested a verbal joust sounded like a good bit of fun to him right about then.

"You like to argue, don't you?"

"All part of my charm."

This had Mamoru rolling his eyes skyward, certainly. "Somewhat dubious charm, perhaps."

"I want to stay, all right? Does that satisfy you?"

"Guess it will just have to," Rei pointed out, itching to get back to the point of this particular conversation. "So drop it already."

The light tone of Zoisite's reply was deceptive, especially given the way his fingers were clenching into fists at his sides. "You're really bossy, aren't you?"

Mamoru decided to take control of the situation at last. "Look, Rei-san. You meet the others at the shrine. We three have got some stuff to talk about; maybe we'll meet you over there later, all right?"

"What stuff?" It seemed that Rei couldn't help but always act a little bit suspicious; rather than being irritated by it, Mamoru actually found it somewhat refreshing. Even though all the girls were only fourteen years old, he couldn't help but think sometimes that their general naiveté would one day get them into a fair amount of trouble.

"It's about the nijizuishou," Ami elaborated for him.

Rei looked like she wanted to know more, but she quickly accepted that getting into a technical discussion where Ami was involved could be extremely hazardous to one's academic health. "All right, then. We'll just see you later." Her bright young face disappeared from Ami's screen, that returning to the files associated with the detection of the remaining nijizuishou.

Mamoru braced himself to return to the battlefield, knowing that he had to take this particular bull by the horns if he actually wanted to get anything useful out of it. "Right. Back to your powers, Zoisite."

Zoisite blew out an exasperated breath, already back in form for the battle. "I don't _have_ any powers, Endymion-sama," he repeated, his expression showing he was extremely annoyed at having to repeat this fact seemingly every five minutes.

"But you must have," Mamoru persisted, showing his own stubborn streak. "I mean, normal human or not, you _were_ shitennou…and obviously something more than that, if you actually knew me as a prince. Surely if we can be normal and…super, you can too."

"Your logic is impeccable." His voice was as dry voice as autumn leaves and about as inclined to be useful.

Impatient now, Mamoru snapped back: "Zoisite, just shut up and do something."

The sneer that crossed his face was dark, and made Ami recoil. It was far too reminiscent of the Zoisite they had originally known, though Mamoru seemed to frustrated to actually notice. "That a direct order, Endymion-sama?"

"Will it make you do it?" he asked in a cool voice that was totally at odds to the fire snapping in his eyes.

"Yes," Zoisite muttered quite suddenly, looking away. "Damn this stupid compulsion to listen to every word you say!"

For a moment the poor stuck-in-the-middle Senshi could only look between the two men, who by now were not looking at each other. Fortifying herself with a deep breath, she made to enter as a conciliator and hoped she wasn't blundering too badly by doing so. "I agree with Mamoru-san," she pointed out, wincing a she waited for the glare from Zoisite that never came. "Logically, if you knew the prince personally back then…and Luna says it's likely that we all lived back then, once…surely you have some power."

Inclining his head, Zoisite gave Ami an approving smile that made Mamoru look faintly ill. "See? Logic works better than bitching at me. Thank-you, Ami-san."

Ami blushed faintly and ducked her eyes; Zoisite's charm was not to be denied, no matter how much Mamoru liked to pretend it did not exist.

"But what do you expect me to do? I'm not Senshi like you, which makes me wonder how much power I could possibly have. For all I know, I turned because I wanted it." He paused to consider this, and then added in a shrewd tone: "It's not like I'm going to try to yelling whatever you girls yell before you transform or anything. Besides, you wouldn't even catch me _dead_ in one of those Sailor fuku of yours."

"Oh, they're not so bad," Ami said half-thoughtfully, now tapping away at her computer.

"You're telling me," muttered Mamoru, though the Look that Zoisite and Ami both gave him assured him they'd _both_ heard what he had just said to himself. Smartly he coughed and ducked his head, quickly changing the subject. "Do you have the kurozuishou? Maybe—"

"There's no way any of you could use it," Zoisite interrupted sharply as he pre-empted Mamoru's direction of conversation. "You're all too damned pure."

"Like you?"

"I'm not pure," he said in disgust, "but I'm not dark, either. Like most people I'm now somewhere in between."

Rolling his eyes, Mamoru found it upon himself to point something out to Zoisite. "I didn't mean use it, anyway. I wanted to know if Ami-san could analyse it. She mentioned that the moon-stick has a capability of reacting to the nijizuishou when close by, but not at any distance…perhaps she could analyse your kurozuishou and cross-reference information to make a programme of her own, one with a much wider scope."

"Good plan," he replied easily, "with just one flaw."

"Flaw?" asked Ami as she raised her eyes to look at him in confusion.

Zoisite produced the crystal with all the flourish of a career magician, facial expression as deeply awry as the state of the kurozuishou. "It's kind of a _shiro_zuishou now."

Ami stared at the white crystal with her mouth wide open; it was several seconds before she thought to raise a hand to cover it. "…what did you do to it?"

"I rather imagine the moon-stick is responsible for this one – or the one wielding it, at least." A twist of his wrist revealed the colour was consistent across the entire object; it shone silver, white, transparent, opaque…not a sliver of black remained. "All that positive energy must have wiped it clean, like dragging a duster impregnated with acid across a chalk board."

"So it's broken?" Mamoru asked, almost dumbly.

"I'd assume so," Zoisite replied ironically, obviously just avoiding tacking _genius!_ on the end of that particular sentence.

"But you don't have any power," he shot back quite sharply, seeming to regain rapidly his aplomb. "How would you know?"

Zoisite flicked the shirozuishou to the so-called prince, who almost fumbled the unexpected gift. "Then you do it."

"…I don't know how," he said, raising it to the light in wonder.

"Welcome to my world, Endymion-sama."

Mamoru tossed the crystal back, and Zoisite caught it with far more skill than he had just done. "Just help Ami-san, would you?"

"No." His voice and expression would not have been out of place on a petulant two year old, and it was that observation that had Mamoru's temper rising again quite sharply.

Through teeth gritted, he said slowly and near-calmly: "I told you to do something, and I want you to do it."

The smile he got in return was beatific but mocking all the same. "Good for you."

"Zoisite—"

Even though all signs up until that point were suggesting that the former prince was to be the first to lose his temper again, it was the volatile shitennou who exploded. He leapt to his feet quite suddenly, blood suffusing his face as the reins holding in his ill-humour abruptly snapped. "I don't have to do anything you tell me to!" he all but screamed at the seated Mamoru. Eyes flashing deep jade, he shouted in a voice that could bring down mountains: "You have no power over me!"

"Don't I?" Mamoru asked, the calm he displayed under this fire while Ami shrank away deeply regal and oddly comforting. "I mean, you are the one who suggested that I do—"

"You don't." Shaking like a leaf in a gale, Zoisite looked like he was about to fly apart at every moment – and that was indeed shrapnel that no sane person would want to be struck down by. "_You don't_."

With that, Zoisite ran out of the room to the balcony, slamming the sliding door behind him so hard that it cracked.

Ami belatedly realised how badly she was shaking herself when she tried to stand and found that her knees were completely incapable of supporting her slight weight. "Mamoru-san—"

The apparent prince, however, was far more calm than the little Senshi could ever hope to be. "It's all right, Ami-san," he said in a low voice that held the distance of entire ages long since past. "I'll deal with him."

When Mamoru entered the balcony – sensibly deciding to avoid for now the issue of _another_ broken pane of glass – he found that Zoisite was sitting on the balcony again; he was up on the thin ledge with his long legs curled up so that he could rest the pointed chin of his pensive face upon them. In the sharp afternoon light he looked shockingly young, and it occurred to Mamoru that he truly had no idea how old Zoisite _really_ was.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, the question coming to his mind from seemingly no-where.

If the look on Zoisite's face was anything to judge by, he found the question as patently odd as did Mamoru himself. "Personal question, isn't it?" The disdain in his voice was nearly as tangible as the ledge of the balcony itself.

"You just didn't look like yourself."

Zoisite looked away, voice even more bitter and disgusted – if that were actually possible. "You don't know anything about what I should look like."

"Maybe I should."

It seemed that in a state like this, anything could set the former shitennou off again. That particular remark incited him to storm right back inside, voice raised in fury. "Just shut up already!"

Mamoru stalked after him, his own temper beginning to flare. "Do you really think that's any way to speak to a prince?"

Zoisite whirled around, one hand catching the glass on the coffee table and sending it flying. Ami winced at the sound of breaking glass, closing her eyes against the display but not her ears. "I don't care if you're Lawrence of bloody Arabia! Leave me the hell alone!"

Bringing a hard fist down upon the mantel, Mamoru all but bellowed: "Listen to me!"

Entirely unimpressed by this display of frustrated anger, Zoisite simply screamed back: "Fuck you, Endymion-sama. Just fuck you!"

The words hung in the air like rain frozen in time; they all but echoed in the ensuring silence. The only sound that entered the quiet was the heavy breathing of himself, the shitennou…and what sounded like the withheld tears of a Senshi. Seeking to bring his temper back under some control, Mamoru looked at the small ball that was the Senshi of Mercury upon his couch and sighed. His anger was already seeping out of him like sand through a sieve, but the sight of the shell-shocked Ami-san only made the sand fall faster. "…you're upsetting Ami-san," he said finally, directly the words at Zoisite and wondering why he was bothering.

The words made Ami blush deeply despite the still-obvious fear in her every cautious movement as she sat up straighter in the chair. Mamoru did have to admit he didn't blame her for being overwhelmed by the sudden explosive argument; had he not been caught up in the fury of it he probably would have retreated himself. "I…I…"

Mamoru's observation actually seemed to do some good, however; Zoisite lowered his own voice even though fury still animated his every move, made his eyes shine like dark mirrors. "She doesn't want to get involved, Endymion-sama. Leave her out of it."

"Chivalrous, aren't you?" he asked with a snort that explained explicitly exactly how he viewed the idea of Zoisite as _anybody's_ knight in shining armour.

"Would have thought that was more your domain than mine, but then I guess you never can tell," he remarked coldly, and then crossed his arms over his chest. "Just leave her out of it, would you?"

And silence reigned again while prince and shitennou engaged in a stare-off that would had made anyone's blood run cold.

"Zoisite-san?" The name was spoken in a small voice, but a strong one. Ami was nobody's fool, and even though she knew setting Zoisite off again would be far from her best idea to date, she was perfectly aware that letting this go on would only make the situation much worse.

Oddly Zoisite stopped looking at Mamoru like he wished to use him in chemical weapon experimentation; he unclenched his fists, took a deep breath, even managed a small tight smile. "Yes, Ami-san?"

"Can you help me please?" Her voice was softening even as it gathered more strength. The strength of Mercury, after all, lay in her power to bring calm to any troubled water, to build bridges that would withstand any storm. "I mean…even if you don't have any power, surely you know something about this."

The reply was without words, was only the expelling of a long breath. Ami was convinced he was not going to co-operate when he abruptly flopped down on the couch beside her and pulled the hand holding the computer around so that he could see the screen. "Mineralogy was only vaguely my speciality," he explained nearly mutinously. "I know some geology, a fair amount of inorganic chemistry, and then a lot of organic…or at least my Terran identity does. Things worked a little bit differently in the Dark Kingdom." Pushing his long bangs out of his eyes, he gave Ami a pessimistic look that made her feel monumentally stupid – a state entirely unfamiliar to the clever girl. "I'm not sure I could ever translate that to you, when you don't know anything about black sorcery."

Swallowing back her hurt, Ami found that her words could still be strong if she forced them to be. "We could try. I'm quick, and I like to learn."

Zoisite's face twisted, and then cleared quite abruptly. "Then we'll try it."

"Co-operative all of a sudden, aren't you?" asked Mamoru in a low voice, crossing his arms as he leaned back against the wall. Watching the two together on the couch made him uneasy, even after Zoisite had apparently decided to let his temper cool back into a more normal state.

Both face and voice were deceptively sweet as he looked up at Mamoru. "Would you prefer me being argumentative and obstructive?"

"It would feel a little more familiar."

"But things are different, aren't they? I thought we agreed I was going to help you find your princess, and you were going to stop the Dark Kingdom from finding me."

Mamoru's voice was low, his words probing and flat. "But you want something more than that."

Zoisite's lips tightened. "Leave it."

"You do?" Ami asked in surprise, looking between the two engaged in the silent stand-off with curious bewilderment. "What is it?"

Turning to Ami with a tight smile, Zoisite said very nearly gently: "I said leave it."

"But if we can help you—"

"_I told you to leave it_." Ignoring the cool shock on Ami's face, he took the computer from her. "So tell me, how does this piece of junk work?"

* * *

"So can we really trust him?"

Rei crossed her legs, frowned as she turned away from the fire to her waiting friends. "The fire says it…he…" A shake of her head indicated her annoyance at her inability to clearly express what she wanted to say. "You cleansed him, Usagi. Removed all the negative feelings that were eating him away inside."

Mako raised an eyebrow, half-amused and half-sceptical. "You sure? He's still got a bit of an attitude, if you ask me…or ask Mamoru-san's windows, for that matter."

"I think that's just the way he is." The dismissal might have rankled at Mako if Rei hadn't been uncharacteristically gentle about it. "But he's not what he was. That's obvious enough."

Luna's question was sensible, low. "Could he go back to being what he was?"

"I don't think so. Nothing's certain, but…I just doubt it." Sometimes it really frustrated her, when she was unable to communicate to her fellow Senshi the deep trust she had for what the fire could tell her.

Usagi played with a strand of her hair, chewing on her lower lip in lieu of having any real food to distract herself with. "So he's a good guy, just like that?"

"Not that easy, I think. But he's about as normal as he'll ever get. Your healing wasn't really complete, you know. If it had been, he wouldn't have all these screwed up memories of the Silver Millennium, or even of being Zoisite."

Usagi thought about this, unable to take offence at the words because Rei meant no real offence by them – she was only stating a simple fact. "Like the carriers just…go back to being normal?" she thought aloud, looking to both Rei and Luna for validation.

"Yes. But I don't think that you had enough power to do that to Zoisite."

"So what if it wasn't enough to wipe away all the negative stuff inside of him? Surely there's something left…"

Luna's words were strong. "Fighting any demon takes time. The internal ones are the worst. All we can do is keep an eye on him."

"Maybe it's not even worth it, you know?" That was Mako, the tall girl stretching out her long legs before her on the wooden floors of the shrine building. "I mean, what if he doesn't know how to find the crystals anymore?"

"I think there's still something in him that he can use, if he ever really tried to find it." Rei said softly.

"Power?" Her voice was doubtful as Luna tried to seek a better definition of what Rei was purposely leaving unspoken.

"He has some, I think," and the dark-haired miko stood up to stretch her cramped muscles. "But I wouldn't know for sure unless I brought him here. Which I've been telling you to do from the beginning."

"But he really is okay?" Usagi stressed, not even managing to look embarrassed when her stomach started to rumble like a untimely volcano.

Ignoring this – they'd already _had_ an afternoon snack – Rei nodded. "Yeah. Though something is bothering him."

"Bothering him?" Usagi looked dumbfounded. It was certainly not an unheard of expression for her heart-shaped face to sport like it was this season's hottest fashion. "Like what?"

Wincing, Rei began to comb her fingers through her long hair. In all actuality she had been dreading the turn of the conversation in this direction, because she knew that she was never going to be able to accurately explain her feelings upon it. "You can see he's on edge," she began, wondering if she in fact _could_.

"If I were him, I'd be freaked out about being found by Beryl, too." Curling up her legs beneath her, Mako shrugged at the looks the others gave her. "Wouldn't you be?"

"That's not it," and then Rei shook her head at her own words as she corrected her own mistake. "At least, it's not all of it. He is worried about being found, but there's something weird about it."

"In what way _weird_?"

"I think…" How to express it? She could clearly remember how it felt herself, but…what the fire had murmured had been a hard pill to take. The emotions that had washed over her, seared at her every nerve ending and knocking painfully against her heart…they had been deep, personal feelings. Her understanding of the fire readings meant she knew why it was so hard for her to evaluate the mirrored feelings it had displayed to her – she had simply never felt emotions this intensely, or in such a contradictory fashion. There had been fulfilment and loss, fear and love, warmth and cold, contentment and frustration…opposites warring with one another to make up the troubled mind of a trouble man.

"There's something that makes him want to go back," Rei voiced slowly, "but I don't think it's a desire to be what he was."

Usagi looked away, moved beyond words by the strength of the expression in Rei's dark violet eyes. "Maybe he left a girlfriend behind, or something," she murmured, her heart skipping slightly as she all but read Rei's mind.

Silence rocked the room a moment – and then Mako burst into explosive laughter. "Man, I wonder what kind of girlfriend a guy like that would have…he'd probably be prettier than she was!"

"Maybe." Rei took no offence at Mako's reaction, but she did not join in; after all she didn't want to admit it, but Usagi's sudden words were rather on-track indeed.

Something was indeed a little amiss in the universe when Tsukino Usagi was right, and straight off the bat to boot.

"We should probably go back over there, or something," Rei continued in a low voice, already fishing out her little red communicator. "Ami will be wondering where we are." A few presses of the appropriate buttons, and the blue-haired Senshi popped up on the little screen; Rei was unable to give a greeting before a bubbling Usagi beat her to it.

"Ami-chan!"

"Hi, Usagi-chan," Ami said with a small smile which vanished with her next words. "Listen, is Luna there?"

The little cat leapt up onto Rei's shoulder, peered down at the communicator. "Yes."

"I need to discuss some things with you. Can I come over?"

Interrupting the cat-genius conversation, Rei couldn't help but say sharply: "Didn't you guys say you were all going to come by here?"

"Um…Zoisite's not in the best of moods," Ami said, looking back at the room behind her before returning to face them with a wry grin and a lowered voice. "Mamoru-san doesn't think we should risk taking him out anywhere."

The voice in the background was crystal clear to everyone involved in the conversation. "It would be _nice_ if you could talk about me behind my back when I'm OUT of earshot, Ami-san. Boy oh boy, do we have to work on your sneaky and conniving side."

"And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you." Mamoru was also out of the shot, but his voice was just as clear as Zoisite's.

"Always better to be taught by a master than a novice, Endymion-sama."

Moving away from the bickering pair, Ami was obviously smiling but still looking a tad harassed by having to "live" with the two men thrown together by unfortunate circumstance. "I think it'd be better if one of you took my place for a while, and then we can work things out from there. But it's really important I see you now, Luna."

"All right," the cat said, taking charge. "I'll send one of the girls back over," and nodded at Rei to shut off the communications link.

With the push of one finger, Rei did so; she then turned her face around slightly to give Luna a slightly dark look. "We should really bring him here."

Shaking her head, the little cat hopped down from her shoulder. "Like you said, Rei-chan, these things take time."

"Yeah." Rei arched an eyebrow as she tucked the little scarlet gadget away in one of her large sleeves. "Did I also forget to say that who knows how much time we actually have?"

* * *

Finally setting the computer aside, Ami removed her glasses and rubbed at her reddening eyes. "This could take a while," she mused, and then found she needed to cough. She hoped she wasn't getting sick; the last thing she needed right now was a cold.

"No kidding," Zoisite added as he leaned back, stretching out of the taut position he had been holding himself in ever since they had begun to work. He did not look much better than she did.

With her hair now pushed away from tired eyes, Ami closed them and for a moment leaned back in the couch. It was a blessed moment of relaxation for her, marred only by the knowledge that in a moment she would have to get up again. "Let's leave it on the back-burner a while, then." Without moving, she then added: "I'll get going over to the shrine now, while there's still a bit of daylight left."

"Whatever you say." Zoisite too had leaned back in the couch, closing his eyes and for all intents and purposes actually appearing to be asleep.

"Okay." Ami had by now opened and given Zoisite an odd look that Mamoru wished he could understand. There was no time to dwell on it, for she dropped her gaze to gather her things together while Zoisite remained motionless and uncooperative in his chair. "I'd better go, then."

Zoisite did not speak again until she was almost out the door; he surprised both of his companions by sitting up straight and raising a hand in farewell. "See you later, Ami-san."

Turning, her school-case held in both hands before her, Ami allowed a small smile to cross her face. "Bye, Zoisite-san."

Mamoru was about to remark on the way that Zoisite stared at the closed door long after Ami had used it when he turned to him, green eyes hard. "So. Endymion-sama. When are you leaving?"

"…it's my apartment," he replied evenly, wondering why on earth he'd ever thought that maybe Zoisite _would_ behave once left alone with the person he could not help but call "Endymion-sama."

"Sorry. I forgot." The sarcasm was as heavy as an overfed whale, and possessed all the subtlety of a baby elephant. "I spend so much time here I was beginning to think it was my place."

Passing a hand over his eyes and frowning seemed the only option left to him – well, besides the less sensible one of throttling the former shitennou with his own ponytail of hair. "If you'd behave for five damn minutes, I could take you places."

Zoisite snorted, remarking icily: "You sound like you're talking to a three year old."

"Funny that." The stare-off lasted a few minutes, Mamoru breaking it when he finally said: "One of the girls should be over soon."

Being the one to look away was making Zoisite sulky, that much was obvious. "Which one? The pyro, the klutz or the butch one?"

"There's no need for that."

Zoisite grinned, quite widely; it probably wasn't the best thing for him to find amusing, but Mamoru had to admit that it was perhaps good that at least his mood seemed to be improving. "Probably not. Aside from the fact it makes me feel better."

Reaching down to tidy up several of the text books Zoisite had taken from the shelves and then randomly pushed aside, Mamoru remarked almost idly: "I thought you wanted to be on our side."

"Ah, that depends on your definition of _want_, Endymion-sama," Zoisite pointed out, crossing his legs and wriggling his toes absently. For reasons anyone was yet to figure out, Zoisite never wore house-slippers. Admittedly, they did have more important matters to attend to than what the shitennou did or didn't wear on his feet, however. "You see, it's partly compulsion, partly need, partly want." After standing Zoisite strode to the window, his strong fingers cupping his elbows as he crossed his arms, surveyed the darkening city through the newly cracked window. "…I want to be free. It's just different from wanting to be on your side."

"I don't understand," Mamoru said as he paused to watch the slender figure silhouetted against the window, cast into darkness and nearly without identifiable feature.

The laugh he gave was low, thoughtful as he tuned around to give Mamoru a smirk. The expression's power was muted by the flicker of melancholy in his eyes. "Don't panic, Endymion-sama. I won't be switching sides. I can't. There would be no-where for me to go, because I sincerely doubt that this can be reversed. I'm more or less a normal human now, and frankly? I'd think it's better this way."

He had to ask the question that came to his mind at those words. "Kind of hard to be normal with memories like yours, I'd wager."

"You have absolutely no idea." With his mouth still open, Zoisite clearly looked like he was about to say something else. In the end he did, but Mamoru had the distinct impression that Zoisite had actually changed the subject. "Don't you have classes you should be at, instead of babysitting me?"

"They'll wait, most of them. I can catch them up and go to the ones I need to, like I did today," he explained, finding some comfort in thinking of the minutiae of his normal life rather than focusing on the strange reality of what was really going on here. "Besides, as Rei-san said, you're probably better off at the Hikawa shrine."

"I can look after myself."

"That remains to be seen."

"Look, I am perfectly capable--"

"What if they find you? What then? You're going to protect yourself with what, a frying pan and possibly some ammunition made from kitchen ingredients?" Mamoru tried to soften his voice when he realised how sharp it had become, but he did get the distinct impression that it had not worked. "Until this is sorted, you'd be better off with us."

Zoisite twisted his mouth up into something halfway between a smirk and a grimace. "My prince in shining…evening wear." Sitting back down on the couch, shaking his head so that his long hair caught the changing light and set it ablaze, he started muttering to himself. Mamoru only caught the very start of the tirade. "I can't believe this…it's just…"

Deciding to leave it by getting up and making to move to the kitchen, Mamoru did attempt to add one thing. "I know it must be hard--"

Zoisite's interruption was sharp, as sharp as the way in which he snapped his head up to fasten his dark eyes on his companion. "It's a lot of power to lose." Even though Mamoru was not actually looking at him, Zoisite held up the crystal and shook it. Even though he had long since discovered that that mental and physical avenue was closed to him now, he still felt his mind move in a familiar fashion, attempting to let loose the focused sorcerous force that would set the crystal ablaze with energy. "I used to be able to hold this in my hand and call up so much…oh."

"What?" Mamoru asked, not looking back as he slipped through the kitchen door.

Zoisite's voice was low, stunned. "It's working."

The words made absolutely no sense to Mamoru until he turned to see that the shirozuishou was projecting a column of white light right into his living room. Nearly stumbling over his own two slippered feet, Mamoru sprinted back into the room and to Zoisite's side, dropping to his knees at the side of his couch. "I thought you said you had no power!"

"I don't." Amazed, his face even more pale painted in the harsh white light of the transformed crystal, Zoisite looked oddly young, oddly lost. "It's…bringing up the carrier."

"Are you sure?" Horror mixed with delight was the principal expression on Mamoru's face, which was a stark example of chiaroscuro in the nearly painful glow of the shirozuishou.

"Yes." The odd twist about the words had Zoisite looking over and frowning at what he saw. "Why the stupid face?"

Mamoru could not drag his eyes away from the projected person for the world. "That's Reika."

Wrinkling his nose made his earlier aura of youthful innocence under the pure glow fade right away. "Reika?"

Mamoru's voice had the barest tremble in it as he raised one hand as if to reach out to touch the immaterial girl; he let it fall without actually trying. "My best friend's girlfriend."

"Behold the might of the coincidence," Zoisite said as he tightened his own bare fingers about the crystal; it was warm to the touch as he let the image fade. "Well. It looks like you and I have a date tonight with your little Reika."

Beginning to gather some of his poise now that the initial shock of the projection (both its source and its revealed quarry!) Mamoru snorted, leaned back on his heels. "I don't think so."

"Oh, we can go Dutch if you're broke, Endymion-sama. I won't think badly of you," Zoisite assured him sweetly as he tucked the crystal reverently away in one pocket.

Rubbing at his eyes – a combination of general tiredness and the strength of the shirozuishou's light were really make him think longingly of the eyedrops in his bathroom cupboard – Mamoru just had to remark ill-temperedly: "…were you always such a smart-ass?"

"I can't help it if I'm charming." With a toss of his hair, he gave Mamoru a speculative look. "Are you going to get her for me, then?"

"What, you think you can actually get the nijizuishou out of her?"

"Bastard."

"…_excuse me_?"

"…that's a bastard of a good point." Zoisite smiled angelically up at him, still fiddling with his long hair as appeared to be his unfortunate habit. "And the answer to your question, incidentally, is…no. I don't think I can."

"So why should we go and see her tonight?"

Spreading his hands in a supplicating gesture, Zoisite said airily: "I just like to do things right away."

"Never would have guessed that," Mamoru sighed while wondering how much aspirin and paracetamol he was going to be going through in the next few days. As it was, he was already beginning to think he deserved at least a dozen complimentary shares in a large pharmaceutical company. "But it would be helpful if you could think about these things first."

"You should tell your little Sailor Moon that some time."

"I figure I wouldn't be the first to try – and fail." He shook his head at that, tried to sort out his thoughts into a more linear order. "Besides, you honestly think I should call Reika out of the blue at six in the evening? Yes, that would look good. I'll just go call my best friend's girlfriend, shall I? And what will I say? 'Hey. Reika-san. It's Mamoru, you know, Motoki's friend…want to come over? Oh, no, there's nothing odd about it at all. Nothing sinister or dodgy. I just want to take your nijizuishou out and turn you into some slobbering monster, but really, it's okay. I have a loud-mouthed blonde friend with a pointy pink wand who'll fix that right up. She's only fourteen, mind you, and she'll cry if you try to eat her, so just don't bring the salt, huh?'"

"Endymion-sama." A raised eyebrow gave Zoisite's lovely features an amused slant, one that was also startlingly attractive. "I had no idea you had such a finely-developed sense of humour."

"…I really don't like you calling me that," he remarked as he looked away, the words unplanned. Still, he had to admit that they were perhaps the truest words he had spoken in some time – despite the fact he used the authority the name gave him against Zoisite, the shitennou addressing him by that title really did set his skin crawling.

_…but then, all those years ago, he **did** betray you, didn't he…?_

"And I don't like calling you Mamoru, but one of us has to get what we want." Yawning as widely as any Siamese cat, Zoisite gave him an incurious look. "You know, Endymion-sama, I really don't even know if this…kurozuishou, version 2.0, will actually release the youma."

"Really?"

With a shrug of his shoulders he conveyed his nonchalant attitude towards the thought. "Why should it? Serenity-sama wanted to hold the spirits, and I can't see that any force allied with her would release them."

Mamoru pressed his fingers against his temple and wished that it was possible to get a brain massage. He was certainly willing to have one right now. "But don't the crystals hold them captive?"

"Probably."

"Nice answer." Mamoru muttered, and wondered if brain _replacements_ were available instead.

"Hey. Did I claim to know everything?"

"Possibly not, but you like to act like you do."

"The problem with being better than everybody else, Endymion-sama, is that people tend to think you're pretentious."

"Read that in an encyclopaedia, did you?"

"No, a shop window." Having apparently decided that he was the victor of this latest verbal joust, Zoisite looked to his futon eagerly. "I'm going to bed. We should go see Reika-san in the morning or something, and take those little girls along for the ride. After all, if we do manage to yank that nijizuishou out like a rotten tooth from a dead horse's head, then you'll attract some unwanted attention. Guaranteed."

Shaking his head at the analogy, Mamoru began to wonder where he kept Reika's number. "I'll give her a call." With that he reached for the cordless phone, planning to take it into his room where he could at least get a little privacy.

"Oh, and Endymion-sama?"

"What?" he asked, not looking back to see what Zoisite was up to now.

"Tell her that it's more likely Usagi-san will try to eat HER, if we forget to feed the Moon-child before letting her out."

"…and he thinks MY sense of humour is off…" But he laughed anyway. It made picking up the phone and making the call just that little bit easier, after all.


	5. Beauty On The Fire

**Author's Notes:** …and at long last, she posts again. I haven't been writing much outside of original works as of late, but after making an idiotic music vid of the PGSM shitennou to Queen's _Princes of the Universe_ this fic called to me. So I dug out the editing pen and here we go again. 

This chapter is angst and nijizuishou. It's all good…right? Thanks for reading if you're still out there, and I hope to hear from you in regards to what I'm doing right and wrong. I'm one of those feedback whore types, of course.

**Five: Beauty On The Fire**

_In which memories are just where one has left them - debates on princesses, stupid leaders and the cookies of the dark side start arguments - crystals find the light of night and - Zoisite finds the past has an unusual way of catching up with him._

The Kingdom had not changed at all, but then he had only been away from it for several days. Why would it change in so short a space of time?

His mind and body protested loudly at his return, calling it ill-planned and near-impossible, but in this state Zoisite did not care. The familiar weight of his uniform was heavy against his body, blessedly normal; even with the crawling weight of negative energy buzzing in his ears and dogging his every step, Zoisite pushed himself on further. Every familiar twisting of an ever more twisted corridor brought him ever closer to the one…the only one…

He stumbled, but did not fall. The darkness was eating away at his mind, his vision blurring and his muscles screaming in agony as it tried to absorb the negative energy around him, and then rejected it utterly. Grimacing, he pushed himself on further – what did pain matter, when he was still here…still waiting…maybe wondering…

"Kunzite-sama!" He gasped and swayed when the figure stepped into his view; with a total lack of control he fell forward, stretched his hands out uselessly. Even with his goal so obvious before him the agony of being a bright creature caught in a web of utter darkness was devouring him alive, leaving him feeling like a fly with all fluid sucked from its body, a dried up husk of nothing.

"Zoisite."

Not even the harsh coldness of that flat voice could stop Zoisite from revelling in the fact that the man of ice and darkness had caught him. "Kunzite-sama…I came back. I couldn't stay away."

"Obviously."

Closing his eyes, unable to stop himself from leaning into the cool body, Zoisite searched for tears that would not come. His body was burning under the onslaught of Metallia's power, every inch of his skin feeling as if it had been doused in accelerant and set alight. Into the dense fabric of Kunzite's binding uniform he whispered hopelessly: "…you don't want me back."

There might have been pity in his voice, had Kunzite possessed even an iota of any such thing. "I have no use for you."

Zoisite tried to swallow, found that he could not; there was seemingly no fluid in his body, dried up as he was by the evil that burned him even as he still clung to the only thing that he had ever wanted to die for. "…no…"

"No use. No beauty."

"No," he whispered again, feeling Kunzite pull away from him, letting him fall to the ground. He felt no pain as he hit the hard rock, but then perhaps the intense press of darkness against his skin had seared every nerve end into non-responsiveness. That vaguely comforting thought was burned away into ashes when he felt the scorching agony of watching the cold man turn away, walk away, leave him to this lonely fiery death. "NO!"

"All you had for me to utilise is gone," Kunzite said as he stopped, a shimmering column of grey and white in the darkness of the darkest of all kingdoms; he was as cold as ice and yet did not seem at all disturbed by the fire consuming his former lover. "And you didn't even retain your beauty."

Zoisite looked down at his hands; even though he felt that they should be ablaze with fire and smoke, they looked as pale and flawless as they always had. They mocked him with their cleanness, their apparent purity. "I look the same as I always did," he whispered, voice only the crackle of parched autumn leaves.

"You were so beautiful, but now you're ugly," he murmured, and still did not turn around.

"No!"

"Tainted by the light."

"But I haven't changed! Kunzite-sama, I'd never leave you—"

The dark man turned to him as quickly as the striking cobra; his hand was tight about the delicate throat as he held Zoisite high, pressed the slim body back against the curving wall so hard the smaller man thought his spine would break like so much fragile blown glass.

"You'll leave me now," he said, as calm as the sea that held a rip deadly enough to drown all oxygen-loving creatures unfortunate enough to challenge its strong pull.

"No," he choked, suffocating as the hand of gloved ice crushed his larynx with fingers as strong as steel cables. "Kunzite-sama, don't…I…please!"

And then he looked into his eyes, into pale platinum eyes that were as mirrors even in this darkness. It was there that he saw reflected a dark, withered creature of age, saw the figure that Kunzite saw…faded beauty disfigured and malformed by the light.

_No creature of the light can exist in the darkness…and Kunzite **is** that darkness. He can't live without it…you know that. You might live in daylight, but he'll always live in night…in night…in night…_

"I'm dying,' he whispered, and at last he felt two tears slip down cheeks that still felt as smooth as porcelain to him.

"Good," Kunzite hissed, and clenched his throat with fingers sheathed in white until everything went black, and black, and black.

* * *

"Damn," Mamoru muttered; as he swam into Zoisite's focus, it became apparent that he was rubbing his head and looking rather bemused. "Do you kill everyone who ever tries to wake you up, Zoisite? I hope you have a damn decent alarm clock in that case…sheesh!"

Disoriented, arms flailing useless as he tried to find himself in space and time, Zoisite could only manage a choked: "What the hell is going on…where am I?"

"Oh, great," came the sigh from Mamoru as he sat back on his heels and failed at trying to look patient. "Don't tell me we're going to have to go through this again – wait a second." Realisation schooled his features into hard granite, eyes flashing blue fire as he pushed his face right up to Zoisite's and demanded near-harshly: "Who do you think I am, exactly?"

At first Zoisite could only look at him with the wild eyes of an untamed lion, then casting an uneven stare about the room. "Endymion-sama, what's going on? Why do you look like…why am I…what's happening? Is Beryl here? Has the war begun?"

"Zoisite. Get a hold of yourself!" Mamoru, shaken more than he could admit by Zoisite's incomprehension of reality, put his hands on either of those slim shoulder. Shaking him like a rag doll so his head moved uselessly on his neck didn't make Zoisite anymore responsive to reality, however. "Tell me what you see, what you're thinking about!"

"I…my head…what is happening?" Zoisite's eyes widened as he looked at Mamoru closely, horror beginning to dawn there with an intensity of feeling that had Mamoru's mind reeling. "Is the princess all right?"

Mamoru's voice was guttural, desperate as he clutched at this peculiar straw with all the force of a dog latching onto a bone. "Tell me who she is!"

"Endymion-sama…Serenity-hime…she…" A hand floated to his head as Mamoru held him steady, the green eyes clouded and confused. "What's happening to me?" he wondered aloud, voice broken and distant, as if he was slipping away to a place where Mamoru could not reach him. In fact, the dark-haired man was getting the distinct impression that that was in fact what was really happening.

"Zoisite! Hang on to those memories! Hang on to them, just for minute longer!" Even though he tried to speak with complete command, his voice was breaking as he felt the…the…_familiar presence_…in the shitennou slip completely away. "Zoisite--"

"…it's gone." His head was hung low, long strands of his sweaty hair obscuring the drawn face. "Shit. For a moment there…I knew it all." Shaking his head like that might order the scattered memories was all he could think to do, but the fading knowledge was as insubstantial as any half-remembered dream. "_Shit_."

Sitting back so suddenly he nearly fell over backwards, Mamoru slammed a fist against the carpet. "Dammit. That could have helped us more than anything, you actually remembering the Silver Millennium." He paused long enough to let out a long sigh, the silence feeding him a realisation that had him looking very sharply at Zoisite. "I still have no idea who you were to me, but you speak like I'd recognise you on sight…and you named her."

"Named who?" Zoisite asked, looking up with a frown. "The princess? Who is she?"

"Her name was Serenity." He was quiet for a moment, and then said reverently: "Like her mother's."

"…well, now," drawled Zoisite, looking suitably unimpressed. "That's pretty damned helpful."

"Shut up, Zoisite," came the muttered retort. "You dragged me out of a perfectly good dream of my own at five in the morning, so you could at least _try_ to be polite."

"It's five in the morning?" Zoisite began to take in his surroundings in order to locate a clock that would corroborate Mamoru's story, but instead noted that the Senshi staying tonight was still apparently fast asleep. "…she must sleep like a rock!"

"I'm getting the impression she could sleep through a hurricane and a tsunami, possibly with a moderate earthquake to boot." Affectionate and wry, Mamoru's answer was still rather sweet as he looked at the lightly snoring Usagi. "Never mind. She's got a heart of gold."

"Good for some." Zoisite wasn't paying much attention to the conversation any longer, however; as he raised his hand carefully, he realised it was shaking so badly he couldn't hold it still at all.

Noting this, Mamoru frowned and asked the question that immediately leapt to the front of his mind. "What the hell brought those memories back like that, anyway?"

"I had a nightmare."

The distant pain in that sentence had Mamoru watching Zoisite very careful for any physical cues as to the contents of that dream. "About what?"

"Things." Zoisite was still shaking, and he felt it become worse instead of better as the memory of the dream hit him full force. One hand stole to his throat, as if in doing so he would find bruises marrying the smooth white skin. "Things…I don't want to talk about it."

"You really think that's such a good idea?" came Mamoru's sceptical reply.

"I…" Even as he pushed himself to his feet, he nearly fell because his body wouldn't stop trembling long enough for him to regain his balance. "I just…I can't! No!"

And in the vein of many a tantrum, Zoisite retreated to the small balcony outside of Mamoru's apartment. With a long slow sigh, Mamoru cast a look at Usagi – still sleeping like a baby and now snoring like a pig – and followed Zoisite outside.

"We spend way too much time out here."

Zoisite cast him a dirty look, but at least he no longer resembled a Parkinson's patient off his medication. "The openness calms me. The Dark Kingdom…is not for the claustrophobic." He couldn't help but tighten his fists as the memory of the dream caressed his mind with unkind fingers. "Shit."

The only thing that distracted him was the fact that Mamoru didn't reply – instead, he was left watching him walk away, back to the warm interior of his apartment.

"What are you doing?" he asked, almost stupidly. "Aren't you going to try and comfort me?"

Mamoru stopped just inside the door, turned to give Zoisite an incredulous look. "Are you kidding? I want to get some sleep!"

The smile that nearly crossed his lips shocked Zoisite; in the end he satisfied himself by just snapping: "Some prince you are."

"I'm beginning to think I could say the same about you and whatever it was you were supposed to be to this prince."

Zoisite looked away, unable to meet the half-formed accusation in Mamoru's eyes.

"I would say it's all in the past, but I think the past is beginning to catch up with us now," Mamoru added quietly, voice even and cool.

A bitter laugh under his breath tainted his reply. "Master of the understatement, aren't you?"

"Among other things." And still Zoisite would not look at him, though Mamoru did not appear to care. "I'm going back to bed. You?"

"It's dawn. I don't think I'm going to bother going back to sleep."

Mamoru raised his hands, shrugged. "Keep it down, would you? Usagi-san could obviously sleep through D-Day, but me?"

"Whatever." He didn't bother watching Mamoru leave, not this time…not when the memory of the dream was so bitter against the back of his mind.

_I can't go back…not in this state. But I…Kunzite-sama. How am I supposed to return to you when I know in my heart you'll never have me like this? Working against Beryl is one thing…but betraying you is only betraying myself. _

It was Sunday now, and indeed the sun was beginning to crack the space between land and sky on the horizon already. Sunday meant the little girls had the day off…and he was not looking forward to the thought of having them here all day. Watching the sun rise, as slow and steady as the tortoise that won the race anyway seemed to assure Zoisite that it was going to be a long, long day indeed. And it hadn't even really started yet.

* * *

Many hours later, knowing the coincidences that seemed to govern their very existences, Kunzite descended to earth to widen the range of his makeshift kurozuishou from Yumeno Yumemi's home. It hardly took a moment to discover the carrier of the next nijizuishou; the dark-haired woman was smiling in the image conjured of her, feminine and lovely in lab-coat and heels.

"Pretty girl," he mused, and felt a small smirk about his lips as he wondered how Zoisite would react if he'd heard that remark fall from his lips. The expression faded just as quickly as he realised that Zoisite would not hear such a thing at all. As inclined as he had been to baiting the younger shitennou with comments designed to make his eyes flash and his blood boil, he never realised not being able to see such a display of childish temper would leave such a…a hole in his dark life.

_…and the hole Zoisite leaves will not be filled so easily…_

Irritated, he banished the thought of the still-missing shitennou. As lovely as Zoisite had been, there was nothing to be gained in dwelling on the fact that he was now gone, that his useful lifespan had long since expired. Zoisite had surely run for a reason – for he was alive; Kunzite did not know how he shielded from Beryl, but he would never be able to sustain that level of sorcerous skill for long – and an individual Beryl surely now viewed as a traitor to the Kingdom would be of no use to Kunzite in gaining the power he needed to release Metallia.

That had been how it had all started, of course. Kunzite had forced the unstable Zoisite under his wing when the elder and more powerful of the two had calculated that Zoisite's brand of chaotic insanity would be a perfect foil to his own cool attitude to his goals. After all, Zoisite was more useful as ally than enemy, as Nephrite would be wont to admit had he not already been killed due to the sakura's scheming.

_But then it seems not even you could tame the loose canon that was Zoisite…because he's gone now. Pity. He was useful indeed. Still…he would have become a liability eventually. His hatred of Beryl would have led to her disposal of him sooner or later…silly child! Why did he never learn the most important lesson of all…that in order to defeat Beryl from outside, one must defeat her from within? After all, she would never expect her most loyal shitennou to be the one to wield the instrument of her own downfall._

Still. There was no time to dwell on how Zoisite could have helped his plans, not now that he was gone – for surely he was. Beryl wouldn't let Zoisite back into her fold, and even if the sakura returned to Kunzite for help, there would be too much risk in accepting him back when his existence would incur Beryl's total wrath.

_…but wouldn't it be worth having him back all the same…?_

Impatiently, Kunzite firmly banished all thoughts of Zoisite from his ordered mind. There were nijizuishou to collect, after all…and then a darkness to spread across the entire world.

* * *

"…Motoki has a GIRLFRIEND?"

Nobody actually answered Mako's question, but it was not because it was rhetorical (even though it actually was). The reason nobody answered her was just because everybody present had already taken turns repeating Mamoru's original "Yes." By this present stage, everyone had finally picked up on the fact that her repeated query did not mean she hadn't actually heard them right the first time.

"So she's happy for Zoisite and I to come over this evening," Mamoru continued, as if Mako had not even spoken at all in the first place. "She's quite busy at the moment, but I managed to get her to give up a bit of her time."

Rei nodded, looked down at the watch adorning her slim wrist and frowned. "How long do you think this will take?" she asked, directing the question at Zoisite.

With a half-shrug, Zoisite didn't even bother to look up from the little print-out from Ami's computer he was puzzling over. "I don't know."

"Can't you guess?" Mamoru asked, apparently totally incapable of keeping the edge to his words from creeping out of his mouth.

This got Zoisite's full attention, the small man turning the full force of glaring green eyes at the tired student. "Seven point eight-five hours," he snapped peevishly, tightening his rose-bud lips into a sharp, ugly line.

Mamoru snorted, itching for another argument with his houseguest even though he knew how unhelpful it would inevitably be. "We don't have that long."

"I don't know that it's going to take that long!"

Ami cleared her throat, just barely able to keep the squeak out of her voice as she decided to step in and nip the argument right in the bud. "Zoisite-san?"

"…yes, Ami-san?" Oddly enough, he responded immediately to Ami's query, evening his voice and calming his glare as he turned his attention to her instead.

"We could make a mathematical model, if that would help? With the right data we would take into account the likely variables and--"

"No, don't bother," he interrupted impatiently, waving a dismissive hand in blatant indication that what she was saying was unimportant. Seeing Ami's slight hurt, he softened his voice even as everyone else wondered why he was bothering. "I can just guess. If I can actually get it to work, I estimate it won't take any longer than what it used to when I used the kurozuishou."

"Unless she turns into a gross monster and tries to eat me," Usagi moaned without thinking, tugging nervously at one of her pigtails. As inclined as she was to dash to the rescue of anyone she knew when the situation presented itself, she still wasn't too good when it came to having _this_ much warning about what was going to try to devour her next.

"Don't worry," Mamoru said, with an affectionate glance at Usagi that had her pinking in a shade to match that of her moon-stick. "We'll make sure to give Reika something to eat before she turns into a youma, just for your benefit."

"Can we leave her as a youma?" Mako asked suddenly, her eyes lighting up like she'd just had a really _fantastic_ epiphany. "Motoki-san won't want to go out with a youma…will he, Mamoru-san?" The blinks she received from her comrades assured her that this great epiphany was not to be received as well as she'd hoped it would be. "What?"

_…four fourteen-year-olds girls, a talking cat and a pretty boy who drips verbal acid – what a great little club this is! Wonder what I did to deserve membership?_ Pushing this amusing but ultimately pointless thought aside, Mamoru said firmly: "Right. So, in order to find the princess, we're going to have to do something a little…horrible here. You guys all okay with that?"

Zoisite laughed out loud, the sound oddly beautiful for all that it was as brittle as aged porcelain. "Why are you even asking me that question?"

The look Mamoru gave him was hard, challenging. "I had hoped you'd feel a little bad about it."

Another one of his mild, elegant shrugs was the only real answer Mamoru received aside from a careless: "Whatever."

"It's for the princess." It was Rei who spoke for the Senshi, perhaps because Usagi had managed to find a hard candy in one of her pockets and was currently near-choking on it in her hurry to say something of her own. "And it's not as if we're going to run off and leave her like that. We have the moon-stick after all."

"And I can use it!" Usagi managed to gag out finally, though her rather beatific smile had Mamoru smiling at the display rather than rolling his eyes.

"We know." Zoisite muttered, rather less amused by the act than his "prince." "Still, have to say, can't wait for the princess to come back and claim it off you."

"What – this belongs to her?" Pulling the stick from where she had last stashed it in her shoulder bag, Usagi stared at it rather dumbly. "I thought – Luna!"

But the cat was too busy giving Zoisite a long speculative look to pay any attention to her charge. "How did you know that?"

Zoisite met the feline gaze unwaveringly. "Some memories are made of hardier stuff than the others. I just remember seeing it in the hand of the Queen…so in theory it's the princess' now."

Mamoru's own question was just as sharp, coloured slightly more obviously with a hint of desperation. "What do you remember about the princess?"

"Nothing. I told you that already." The tone of Zoisite's voice was flipping back between boredom and wariness, a dichotomy that had Mamoru's hands and heart tightening into what felt like three separate fists.

"You obviously remember _something_."

The tightness of Zoisite's voice was reflected in the tensing of his slim body, his eyes narrowing in a way that was all too reminiscent of the Zoisite that they had all known originally. "Barely anything."

Usagi stopped staring at her moon-stick long enough to give Zoisite a rather hopeful look. "Are you sure you really don't know who the princess is?"

That seemed to be enough for Zoisite for that day – he all but exploded at the blonde Senshi with enough force to scare her off bursting into immediate tears. "For the ten thousandth time, YES!"

"Yes, you're not sure?" she asked in a small voice, clutching the pink stick to her small breasts. "Or yes, you're not sure you're sure?"

"Oh, for crying out loud!" he snapped back, pushing himself violently to his feet. Before anyone could react to his sudden movement, the shitennou had stomped off across the room and slammed his way out onto the balcony.

"…he's kind of moody today," came Usagi's weak observation; her voice gained strength again as she abruptly wondered aloud: "…and is it just me, or is he moody _every _day?"

"Come on, Usagi-chan. He's not used to all of this," Mako pointed out, looking the least rattled of the Senshi by Zoisite's latest temper tantrum. It had to be assumed that perhaps it was because she was still trying to wrap her mind around the entire Motoki/girlfriend idea. "I mean…he didn't ask for this or anything."

"He just got thrown into this…and with _you_, too," Rei pointed out wryly, crossing her ankles and looking rather wearily amused. "I can understand his pain, believe you me."

Ami frowned at Rei's phrasing, but she did add quietly: "Yes, Usagi-chan. Imagine how you'd feel if you suddenly switched sides like that."

Wide eyes and a wider mouth demonstrated aptly how aghast Usagi was at this idea. "But I'd never switch to the dark side!"

"Oooh, I don't know about that," Rei said, and then rather surprised all of those watching by raising cupped hands to her mouth. Her subsequent heavy breathing was muffled and distorted by the way she held those hands. "Come to the dark side, Usagi," she intoned in a deep voice. "It's got…_cookies_!"

Mamoru stared at Rei – he'd never thought the girl to have much of a sense of humour, and what she did have appeared to be a bit odd. But it certainly had him laughing himself stupid.

"Hey! That's not funny!" Usagi complained, crossing her arms and pouting deeply. "…but…Mamoru-san, _do_ you have any cookies? I'm hungry now!"

That sobered him rather quickly, as a pained expression suddenly crossed his face. "Rei-san, why did you have to bring up cookies?"

"What, you still haven't learned to stock up before Usagi comes over? Slow learner, aren't you?"

"How do you expect me to stock up?! She eats more in a sitting than I do in a year!"

"Why is he so moody, anyway?" Usagi asked suddenly, chewing on her lip as – fortunately for the now-fretting Mamoru – the thought of cookies apparently escaped her attention for the time being. "I mean, I know that all of this had to be weird for him, but…I healed him, right?"

"I think you're obsessing about the healing, Usagi," Rei remarked, blowing her fringe out of her face and sitting up somewhat straighter in her chair. "How many times do I have to explain this to you? You healed the darkness in him, but all those little personality defects that led to him allowing the darkness inside? You can't fix those. The moon-stick doesn't start personalities from scratch, after all."

"Pity. Yours could have done with it," Mako muttered; apparently the growing realisation that Motoki _did_ in fact have a girlfriend was beginning to sour her mood.

"Excuse me?"

"I think maybe he's having trouble assimilating all the memories he has been left with, anyway," Mamoru said, more to break up the impending Rei/Mako argument than anything else. "He was dreaming last night…and I think it was something to do with the Silver Millennium, and his fractured memories of it."

"Really?" Usagi asked, brightening as she leapt on the idea with all the enthusiasm of a mildly psychotic kitten. "We should ask him!"

_…and wasn't she just the one who pissed him off with a previous game of twenty questions?!_ Still, Mamoru was trying to be diplomatic about things, so he only said evenly to Usagi: "He really doesn't seem to remember much. I don't think he wants to talk about it anyway."

"So?"

Fortunately it was Luna who spoke, and her words were slightly more polite than the ones that had popped into his head. "I think you should have picked up on the fact that if Zoisite doesn't want to talk about something, he won't."

"It's not right, for him to have all these memories," said Rei quietly, her fingers on her chin as she stared at the wall like the force of her glare could make the answer to her following question write itself there. "What did you do?"

"It was an accident!" The defensive words were near shouted, Usagi quite abruptly becoming extremely upset; Mamoru had to marvel at the power Rei's approval obviously had over the sillier of the two girls. "I didn't mean for it to happen this way!"

"Yeah, you really don't know how to use that thing." The bitterness was hard and sharp like fractured, dying coral. "You'd soon as bonk someone over the head with it as actually HEAL them."

"Rei. Enough. All right?" The harshness of Luna's interruption indicated perfectly well that her patience was wearing terribly thin. "What's done is done."

"I know." Oddly the dark-haired girl didn't seem to be feeling inclined to taking offence at Luna's words; rather, she just ducked her head and sighed. "Sometimes I think I know that better than any of you."

Silence. It was broken only by Luna coughing uncomfortably (inasmuch as a _cat _can cough uncomfortably) and remarking: "Besides, once we get the ginzuishou…I think it will help."

Blinking wide eyes, Usagi gave voice to her favourite question. "Really? How?"

"The healing powers of the moon-stick are partly intrinsic to it, but they are amplified greatly by the ginzuishou."

Usagi looked down at it, where it lay in her lap. With one fingertip she traced a small indentation in the lower curve of the sickle moon, her frown deepening a groove in her forehead. "Is this where it goes?"

"I…yes. I remember." The little moon-cat seemed distant for a moment as she herself stared as if hypnotised at the moon-stick, but she gathered her thoughts together quickly enough. "I think perhaps if you tried the healing again with the ginzuishou in place, you'll heal him. Properly. Fill up all the gaps and blow away the last of the dust."

"I just don't get something," Usagi said finally, glancing first at Mamoru for a brief second and then squarely at her cat. "He has all these memories of living on earth now, right?"

Nodding, Luna was rather impressed by the thought her charge now seemed to be putting into the situation – better late than never, after all. "Right. The moon-stick created a life for him to live outside of the Dark Kingdom."

"…so why doesn't he…what's the word…incisively…go for those ones? I mean, we keep calling him Zoisite and he doesn't seem to really care about his earth life at all."

"Except for his wardrobe," Ami remarked without thinking, and then she pinked as everyone gave her an odd look.

"…and the word you were looking for was _instinctively_," Luna remarked as she looked away from Ami with a small frown, "but…I think it is because the moon-stick didn't manage to erase his memories of the Dark Kingdom. I guess there were just too many memories in his mind and it had so much trouble creating new ones in the brief time you gave it, that it couldn't erase all it needed to."

"When you stopped, he was in the Silver Millennium." Everyone looked at Ami as she said this, but even under their startled looks she continued easily, perhaps it was because she was thinking out loud rather than addressing her friends directly. "Remember the uniform he was wearing? It…I think it was the uniform of some sort of soldier on Earth."

Luna's gasp was as sharp as a new sword. "Endymion's guard!"

"What?" Usagi asked, startled.

Mamoru's reaction was more visceral; he felt as if someone had punched him in the gut with the truth and then run away with it, laughing all the while at the fact he hadn't seen it for long enough to understand it. "…I had a guard?"

"I…no. I don't…I can't support that. It came out of no-where!" Luna hung her head, features tight with partial recollection. "…I…I need to talk to Mamoru-san later. Still, to get back to the point," she said strongly, indicating the subject was now dropped, "the moon-stick obviously pulled all of his memories out and created the new, so that for a moment Zoisite had lived three lives, all in perfect memory, two of them simultaneously."

"Oh, boy," Mako breathed.

"It's no wonder the moon-stick knocks people out the way it does. I rather imagine it does a similar thing for the nijizuishou carriers, without the creation of a new life. I think for a moment they remember everything of what they once were. And then they are returned to who they really are now and all memories of the event are erased." With a shake of her head, Luna then pointed out: "With Zoisite, he was simply too strong. You may have healed him, but the memories never assimilated themselves. He obviously remembers the Silver Millennium in bits and pieces, especially if he dreams of it, but…"

"…but he remembers and clings to the identity of Zoisite precisely because he knows that that is the life that he actually led." Ami's voice was wondering as she completed Luna's trail of thought. "He knows enough to realise that all memories he has of earth are fake, and so he remembers what is real."

"It explains a lot to me," Luna agreed.

"So just because he remembers being Zoisite and _prefers_ those memories, it doesn't mean he wants to be him again?" Rei's question was slow, but only faintly suspicious.

"I don't think so. You've seen his heart in the fire, Rei-chan. What does it tell you?"

"That it hurts him." Looking away, Rei hid her own troubled thoughts by asking aloud: "So the ginzuishou will fix that?"

Luna was still nodding, her eyes grave. "Especially if the princess holds it."

Mako's question was sudden, almost light-hearted. "Can anyone use it?"

"The ginzuishou?"

"Yeah."

Luna blinked, and then seemed to find the answer to a question it was obvious she'd never really thought would be a relevant one. "…yes. That is why it must never fall into the hands of the enemy, but…it has more meaning when it is in the hands of one of the royal line of the Moon. More purpose. It was created by these people, and it was made to sing for them. Others can force it, but like anything, it works better when it yearns to be used. It only does that in the hands of the queen, or the princess."

"Sounds rather cool. I can't wait to see it," Mako said enthusiastically, and then asked rather eagerly: "D'you think I could have a go?"

"It's not a toy, Mako-chan," came Luna's rather stern reprimand; however, her next words made her entire small body droop like it carried the weight of the world. "In fact if it is used to its full – or even it's _near_ – potential, it will kill the one who wields it."

"Whaat?!" Usagi gasped, paling quite considerably even as the other girls drew in sharp breaths beside her.

"That is how Queen Serenity died. She used the ginzuishou to save the souls of her people, and she died for it." Luna's sorrow was tangible in her quiet voice, her pain obvious even though she could scarcely recall her former master, the woman who had sacrificed so much to protect her kingdom and theirs. "That is about the most of what I remember."

"Who did she save them from?" Usagi asked in a hushed voice, blue eyes seemingly haunted by this sombre revelation. "The Dark Kingdom?"

"Yes."

"But now they are back?"

"Yes."

"So why should we make the princess use it?" Rei asked quite suddenly, eyes flashing with bright fire as she realised the severity of the situation. "It obviously didn't work the last time, and I'm not meeting the princess only to tell her to kill herself with the ginzuishou just to see if it'll work the second time around!"

"It would be the princess's choice." Luna's voice was low, starkly pained. "But I will not say that to her either."

Mamoru was the only one who replied, voice as flat as an earth rolled to a pancake by the weight of the universe. "Maybe you will have to."

"Mamoru-san! How can you say that?"

He didn't answer her, only looked out the window to where Zoisite was sitting on the edge of the balcony; it was obvious from the tightness of the skin about his eyes that he was wondering how much he had heard. "I'll go and get him. We should get over to Reika's house soon, she's expecting us…or me, at least. You girls are just back-up, all right?"

Grumbling, Mako was still obviously a little distracted from the matter at hand. "I want to see his girlfriend!"

"What, so you can feel sad about it? Don't, Mako-chan," Mamoru advised rather kindly. Still, he was not about to tell her that Reika was likely to moving to Africa very soon. No point in getting the girl's hopes up, after all. "Besides, if anyone other than Zoisite and I go in, it should be Ami-san."

"But she doesn't even like him!" she protested.

"…Ami-san needs to see the new crystal in action to get some data on it."

"Trust Ami-chan to want data instead of a date," Mako snorted, and then looked embarrassed. "Er, no offence meant, Ami-chan!"

Ami's smile was small, but very genuine. "None taken," she said sweetly, and then turned a serious little face to Mamoru. "Do you want me to come in?"

Mamoru nodded and shrugged at the same time, a quite peculiar gesture to watch in action…particularly when combined with the _come inside now dammit!_ gestures he was making at a scowling Zoisite. "Sure. If Reika-san wants to know who you are, we'll just say…oh, I don't know. She might believe you're a student at the university too – you're smart enough to get around that one – but it might be just as easy to say you're Zoisite's girlfriend or something."

Ami turned into a tomato at that precise second, or at least an approximation thereof. "What?"

The recently returned Zoisite snorted, examined his nails with the air of complete and utter boredom with useless pillocks of princes. "Endymion-sama, you are a twat."

"No, I thought I was a prince," Mamoru warned quietly, causing Luna to stand up and take charge.

"Enough arguing, kids. Can we go now?"

"I can't believe Motoki-san has a girlfriend," Mako seemed unable to stop from grumbling as they all trooped out of the apartment to the stairwell. "I mean, if Mamoru-san doesn't have one…"

"He did have one."

"…oh. Um. Sorry, Rei-chan." Mako had the good grace to look completely embarrassed by her little faux-pas.

"It's okay," Rei said softly, and then gave Mamoru a slight smile. "Isn't it, Mamoru-san?"

"If you say it is, Rei-san."

"It is. After all, we're all working together to find the princess, right?"

Though he smiled at her gently, his only vocal reply was a much less warm: "Let's just go."

Once outside, Rei walked up the front with Mamoru, while Zoisite and Ami seemed to be embroiled in a strange little conversation over the Mercury computer. Mako, Usagi and Luna trailed further behind, Mako idly kicking a stone and frowning to herself.

Usagi, on the other hand, watched the dark-haired pair in silence until she knew she could no longer hold it in. "Ooh, I wish I knew how he does that!"

"Does what?" Mako asked, so startled that she inadvertently set her stone skittering across the road and out of her range.

"Gets Rei-chan to be nice to him," Usagi grumbled, tightening her grip on her shoulder bag. "It's not fair!"

"Well, she's not always exactly nice to him if you'll remember, Usagi-chan."

"Yeah, but she…she's nice to him now." Drooping, Usagi sighed: "I guess my plan didn't work after all."

"Understatement of the year," Luna remarked, and then winced when she saw the crestfallen expression on Usagi's face. "Ooh, Usagi-chan, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that…things may be a little messed up, but I think you did do the right thing. After all, this will help us find the ginzuishou, and then the princess. And there's nothing wrong with that."

"So I really did okay?" she asked in a small voice, hope scribbled all over her pretty, still-childish features.

"I'll always wish that you'd at least _asked_ before you did it, but no there's no point in regretting it now. We can't turn back time."

"We should be able to, you know," Mako said, quite suddenly with a determined look on her sharper features. "We're the Sailor Senshi, after all! We're so cool, we should be able to do anything – including turning back time!"

"I wouldn't get yourself so worked up about it, Mako-chan. It's never going to happen," yawned the moon-cat. "And I certainly hope everyone's had a good night's sleep. Who knows what's going to happen here?"

After that, it was mostly in silence that they completed the journey to Reika's apartment. The only real drama began when Zoisite stopped dead just outside the apartment block, stepped back hurriedly with his hands raised. "I'm not going in there."

"What – what's wrong?" Ami looked rather startled, and not just because Zoisite had backed right into her and nearly sent the pair of them tumbling to the hard concrete in a knot of limbs.

Zoisite's face was nearly bloodless, the skin colour harsh and unnatural in the fluorescent light of an overhead lamp. "_He's_ in there," he said in a voice barely above a whisper, hands tightening into fists that were strained enough to nearly draw blood.

"Who – Kunzite?" Mamoru asked, frowning at the way Zoisite seemed to be drawing in on himself, like an animal priming for the inevitability of fight or flight. From the tone of his words it was easy to gauge which way Zoisite was currently planning to go.

"I'm not going in there," he repeated, lips whitening as he bit them deeply before twisting them into a scowl. "You don't need me to, anyway – the nijizushou's being released even as we speak."

"…oh, god," Mamoru muttered. "Reika-san! …girls?"

Mako whooped quite suddenly, already whipping out her henshin wand; of all her fellow Senshi, it was obvious she was the one who most enjoyed the thrill of the actual pell-mell dash into battle. "Time to open up that can of whoop-ass!"

Zoisite frowned at the little display and raised an eyebrow; even when he was obviously distressed, it seemed he was completely incapable of keeping his snide little asides to himself. "…I have no idea what you just said, and I think I'm actually fairly happy about that."

"Hey, if you want to sit on the sidelines and miss out on all the fun, be my guest. I'm going in there to kick some youma butt!"

"But Zoisite!" Usagi was the one who stopped Mako from charging into the fray like a bull heading for the red cloth, even though she wasn't speaking to the tall brunette at all. "Can't you help us? I mean – you know him, right? You should be able to tell us how to defeat him!"

The slender blonde was laughing even though it was certain he was finding nothing really amusing about the entire situation at all. "Sailor Moon. He taught me everything I know – and that is one master I am sure I will never surpass."

The oddly gentle hand of Rei on her shoulder pulled Usagi's gaze away from Zoisite's. "Come on, Sailor Moon."

"I haven't even transformed yet!"

"Better hop to it," Mamoru said with a wry grin, which brought only a snort from the former shitennou.

"Well, maybe she'd do it if you stopped staring at her with drool running down your chin."

"Oh, stuff it, Zoisite," he said even as the girls began to take off; only he and Ami remained now with the slender man, the blue-haired girl uncertain as she held her henshin wand in one loose hand.

"You'll be okay?" she asked him hesitantly, still not transformed.

"Shoo. Go on," he said coldly, waving his hands at her. "You never hesitated to blow bubbles at me when I was harvesting, now did you? Go!"

But even when Ami left, slightly bemused and hurt, Mamoru stood watching Zoisite with a sceptical look that was calculating and dubious in equal proportions. "Maybe we really shouldn't leave you by yourself."

"You think I'd run off? Well, maybe you'd be right," Zoisite said as he leaned back against the nearest wall, crossing both arms and legs impatiently as he did so. "I mean, I need to get some new clothes before I'm reduced to borrowing yours. I mean, you might like the cape and hat ensemble you've got going on there, Endymion-sama, but just between us? I think it makes you look like an emaciated penguin."

"Duly noted and then forgotten," Mamoru said dryly and without taking any real offence. "Stay here, Zoisite. Because if you're not on our side, you're on theirs – and I consider ditching us at the battlefield to be a switching of sides, all right?"

He clicked his heels together in an exaggerated gesture and saluted with a sneer. "Yes sir."

Reaching for a rose pulled from the air like a rabbit from a magician's hat, Mamoru said in a voice he thought far too kind for the odd man: "It doesn't have to be this hard, Zoisite."

Zoisite rolled his eyes skyward, but there were no stars to glare at tonight. "I like things hard."

"Obviously."

With that much said and done he turned, transforming into the "emaciated penguin" as he did so; bare seconds later he'd caught up with Sailor Moon. Apparently the blonde had been waiting for him only bare metres away, watching the conversation that had so quickly degenerated into yet another quarrel.

"Are you sure he'll be okay?" she asked immediately, concern evident in every inch of her nervous frame. "What if that Kunzite guy comes out this way and finds him?"

"I don't think that Zoisite would let himself be found if he doesn't wish to be, even in the state he's in now." With a near-impatient shake of his head, Mamoru had to wonder when and not if Usagi's painful naiveté would get her into serious trouble. "He may have lost most of his abilities, Sailor Moon, but he's far from powerless. I want you to remember that."

"You don't trust him?"

"Do you want me to?"

"…I don't know!" The frustration didn't sit at all well on Sailor Moon's shoulders, the little blonde not built to have to bear such burdens. "We should…I should believe in the moon-stick…but…"

Tuxedo Kamen made to say something in reply, but a heavy crash from inside had him realising that truly, time was of the essence and was not made to be wasted in situations such as this. "We'll talk more about it after this."

Together the man and the girl ran inside to where the three other Senshi stood facing a scene that made Mamoru's blood run cold – Reika frozen in silent agony, Motoki on the floor, silent and immobile.

"Oh, that is so it," he muttered, blood beginning to boil. Looking up he caught his first glimpse of the tall silver-haired man holding the crystal and supervising his friend's metamorphosis into a youma; he might have said something rather choice had Sailor Moon not beat him to it with something…rather less choice.

"…wow. He's _cute_!"

Tuxedo Kamen rolled his eyes to the ceiling, pulling out his cane and wondering what particular god hated him today. "Oh, boy…"

* * *

Zoisite rubbed at his eyes, then looked down at the watch on his slim wrist. They'd been gone for only a few minutes, but already it felt like an eternity. He hadn't moved from his spot at all, but despite his baiting of Mamoru he hadn't really intended to. Not even with the thought of his Kunzite-sama so near…so near and yet as far from him as the moon itself.

It was harder than he thought it would be, not running into the building and just flinging himself upon the mercy of the greatest of the shitennou. And it would be upon his mercy – he knew more than enough about his lover to understand that when it was explained to him where he had been, Kunzite would not take the news well.

_It was just a stupid dream!_

But that thought didn't make the memory of that dream hurt any less…and it was only because he knew how accurate the dream had been. Oh, he couldn't know for certain that his "cleansed" body with its history as a normal mortal would react so negatively to the all-pervasive darkness of the Kingdom, but he knew that he couldn't live there again. Not like this.

_…funny. Never thought **I'd** be too pure for anything…_

From the apartment came the sounds of crashing and banging, of a few things breaking – someone wasn't going to be pleased about footing the bill for that, certainly. With a wry smirk, Zoisite thought that that was proof enough he'd changed – when under the thrall of the Dark Kingdom, he'd destroyed plenty of both public and private property and not thought a thing of it. Now, however, the back of his mind was keeping count of the sounds and categorising them into "harmless," "expensive" and "total write-off."

_…and what if all those sounds are Kunzite killing those Senshi and Endymion-sama, hmm? What are you going to do then? Run away and hide like a useless little rat even though you **know** he'll find you again, one way or another? And that surely, you'll be handed to Beryl for punishment like so much youma trash?_

Zoisite rubbed tiredly at his eyes, slid down the wall until he was sitting on the pavement with his back to the cold brick. Under ordinary circumstances, he never would have sat down on the dirty concrete, but then in "ordinary" circumstances he could levitate four feet off the ground quite easily.

_…but those weren't the ordinary circumstances…these are…aren't they?_

The sky was cloudy tonight, though at least it had stopped raining much earlier in the day. Not a star was in sight, though the moon did peek out shyly from behind a thin cover of its own. Looking at it only reminded Zoisite of what had brought him here, _who_ had brought him here…and he knew that the chances of reversing that spell were slim.

"But I was dark once," he mused aloud, staring at his short, well-filed nails. "Could I be dark again?"

_…or maybe, after being touched by the moon-stick, returning to Metallia's influence will just kill you stone dead._

"Kunzite-sama," he muttered under his breath, struggling deeper now with the burning urge to run inside, to throw himself at his feet, to tremble beneath the heavy gaze of platinum eyes. But surely Kunzite wouldn't help him when he was like this – there would be no rational reason to. Kunzite appreciated only two things in those he paid any heed too – beauty, and usefulness. He had told Zoisite on many occasions that he could be the very embodiment of both.

_It doesn't mean he loved **you**, idiot. Certainly not the way you loved him!_

His head and his heart were beginning to ache again, and even the sound of what seemed to be an interior wall being pulverised didn't distract him from his own desperate thoughts.

_I could…the only way…Kunzite-sama, you tolerated me only when I amused you, when my beauty charmed you, when my skill was useful to you. I fear I will provide no amusement in this body, but what if I…perhaps the crystal would…_

Zoisite shook his head, trying to battle through the warring thoughts that suddenly made themselves apparent in his desperately roiling mind.

_…the crystal could heal Kunzite-sama! The moon-stick barely healed you, it couldn't touch him – but if Sailor Moon held the ginzuishou…if the **princess** held it…Kunzite-sama could be as healed as you, free from Beryl, yours alone…!_

But then, the thought that entered his mind suggested that his own healing had been less complete than any of them really knew.

_…Kunzite-sama will never leave the Kingdom…he hates the light too much. He's too loyal to Beryl. But if you gave him the crystal…gave him all that power that he loves so…we could kill Beryl! He would be free…and it doesn't matter if I die. It doesn't matter if the Senshi and Endymion-sama die. If Kunzite-sama has all that he wants…then what more could **I **want…?_

With a loose fist, he began hitting the wall at his back slowly and rhythmically, his frustration burning inside of him. The two completely different options were burning a hole in his heart…Kunzite was everything to the lowest of Beryl's shitennou, but the Prince…the Senshi…

_…I can't betray them. **Not again**._

The uninvited sudden thought shocked him, but only momentarily – the movement on the wall above him pulled him from the darkening twilight of his mind. He looked up from the shadows, but the vague trace of energy he could feel was not recognisable to him. For the briefest of seconds he wondered that he still had the ability to sense the energy aura of an individual, but then he'd always been a creature of instinct. Even though his memories of his life in the Silver Millennium had more holes than Swiss cheese, in the hazy life he'd lived before he'd turned to the Dark Kingdom he knew there had been _something _different about him. Of course there had been! Why else would he have been chosen to be…to be…

_To be **what**, you memory-less idiot?!_

No, it wasn't Kunzite above him now. But it wasn't his de facto protectors, either.

"He got the nijizuishou." That voice was female, frustrated; the tone of it vaguely conjured up an image of the Senshi of Mars. Still, this voice was lighter, sweeter. That still didn't serve to make her apparent anger any less.

The second voice – lightly male – swore in a fashion that had even Zoisite looking a little taken aback in his shadowy corner.

"We were too late," the girl – girl? But there was a heaviness to the voice that made her sound older! – continued, sounding progressively more annoyed. "We could have gotten it if we'd come just a little sooner."

The male voice replied then, thoughtful and firm in the same words. "We'd better get involved now after all."

"Are you sure?" The surprise of the girl was almost palpable in the cool night air. The note of hope to her words, however, was what really caught Zoisite's sharp ear. "It could be too early…too risky. You're the one who said I should wait."

"And now I'm the one saying that there's no point in waiting any longer." The voice, despite being light, was very firm. "We should keep an eye on things and help where we can…we don't need to reveal ourselves fully, but we can get involved when we need to."

There was disappointment in the girl's voice that Zoisite couldn't quite understand. "No point in ruining it all yet, right?"

"Precisely. Come on, let's go home."

No more of the conversation was audible as the two figures disappeared into the light; when Zoisite stood from his seated position at the bottom of the wall, he saw they'd vanished completely. "Who the hell was that?" said quietly to himself, even as doubt at the validity of his own question gnawed at the back of his mind.

He knew who it had been.

Too bad he couldn't remember enough to actually comprehend it.

END CHAPTER FIVE


	6. Take What You Have Gathered

**Six: Take What You Have Gathered From Coincidence**

_In which it is discovered that one should not find enemies cute - coincidence rears an elderly head - Rei plays with fire - an old "friend" returns as a new one is made and - being all by oneself seems an appealing alternative after all._

"Well." Zoisite stretched out his legs, gave the downcast band of girls and their token prince a mildly disgusted look. "Obviously, I can't trust you to do anything on your own."

Mildly, Mamoru returned: "Oh, I didn't realise you were trusting us to do it on our own. I thought you weren't getting involved because you have a spine the consistency of water."

"Guys. Come on." Oddly it was Mako breaking up the burgeoning argument, pushing her hair back behind one ear. "We lost the nijizuishou last night. Just deal with it, all right? I'm sure we'll get the next one."

"You're very philosophical. What, did you not notice the man with the white hair, cape and phenomenal power, or what?"

Mako tightened her lips, but still managed a surprisingly polite: "He caught us off guard."

Zoisite, who apparently had no such compunctions about manners, laughed out loud even as he replied with an eyebrow arched ironically at the thunder senshi. "Funny how he managed to do that, even after I warned you about him."

"Zoisite, shut up." Mamoru's voice was even, but his eyes were angry; the tension springing up across the room was palpable and seemingly just seconds away from exploding.

"Guys?" Ami's tentative voice was like cool water, lapping gently at fiery tempers and begging for sense and calm. "Can we please not fight?"

Usagi's eyes were wide but agreeable as she glomped onto Ami's arm. Still, it was hard to tell if Usagi was being protective of her smart friend or begging Ami for some sort of protection for herself. "Yeah! I'm with Ami-chan – let's not fight!"

"The important thing now isn't that we lost the nijizuishou, anyway," Rei said, quite suddenly; the looks that this garnered her showed clearly that no-one was expecting Rei to be so pacifist. "We can get it back. I mean, we need to get another one back, so it's not like we actually created a problem for ourselves. We just made another one bigger."

"…and how's that a good thing?" Mako asked; she wasn't exactly discounting what Rei was saying, but it was obvious she didn't have a clue what Rei thought she was actually getting at.

"I didn't say it was a good thing. I'm just pointing out that we need to put things in perspective here. I mean, at least now we _know_ what we're up against." With that said, she flipped her hair over one shoulder and turned a pointed finger on Zoisite. "_You_ certainly didn't give us enough information to make us feel that way before."

Flipping his own hair in mocking mimic of Rei's own gesture, he intoned politely: "Excuse me."

"But you can make yourself useful now." Her voice was hard now, matching eyes that were those of a de facto leader. "Do you think he'll keep coming?"'

Even Zoisite seemed affected by Rei's assumption of an authority that she wore altogether too well. "What do you mean?" he asked, tone as cautious as it was suspicious.

"For the nijizuishou." At Zoisite's narrowed eyes – even like that the blankness was easily seen – she elaborated with odd patience: "You said he was the strongest of you. Why would he do something like this? I mean, is it just me, or isn't this something you could delegate?"

"To what? Youma?" Zoisite said with a snort that explained exactly what he thought of the efficacy of the lower Dark Kingdom denizens. "It's for the ginzuishou. Nothing is more important to Beryl than that damn trinket."

Usagi choked on a little bit of Pocky; she did manage to speak, however, once Mako had given her a hefty thump on the back. "So he'll be back?"

Giving the a-ok signal with one elegant hand to indicate a correct answer, Zoisite grinned without humour. "If Kunzite-sama turned up once, he'll turn up twice."

Strangely Mamoru entered the conversation fully only at this point; in fact it had seemed up until that point that he had only been half-listening thanks to Usagi. Now that he had accepted his strawberry Pocky collection was going to be decimated by the blonde senshi no matter what precautions he took, he was able to concentrate fully on what was actually going on. "Why do you still call him that?" he asked, ignoring the beatific grin on Usagi's face as she promptly inhaled three sticks of the cookie candy.

"What?" asked Zoisite, furrowing his brow as he gave Mamoru a look that could only be described as mildly disgusted. "It's his name."

"I mean that honorific. Surely he has no power over you."

Now the look spoke volumes about the fact that Zoisite clearly thought Mamoru was crazy enough to be committed under involuntary circumstances. "He'll always have power over me."

"How's that?"

Choosing not to answer that particular question, Zoisite looked away from Mamoru's too-piercing eyes and sought a change in subject rather successfully. "They've obviously found a way to lock onto the energy of the nijizuishou, to locate them without the kurozuishou. We should look up the next one, do something about it before they do."

"So you'll help us?" Usagi asked, offering the Pocky box to the blonde man as if she thought it were tangible evidence of a truce between them.

"Do I have a choice?" he asked with deep bitterness, ignoring the offered sweet.

Ami's voice was low, as she looked up from her omnipresent computer screen, smiling hesitantly at the man beside her. Of all the senshi, she seemed the only one willing to try and cheer up his dark mood with such care. "There's always a choice, Zoisite-san."

"What?" he asked with a sceptical look at her that would have had Ami wincing under usual circumstances. However, the blue-haired girl strengthened her smile and nodded.

"You don't have to help us," she explained, fingers stilled over the keys of her computer.

"Ami-san!" Mamoru's voice was aghast, the words echoed by Usagi in surprise. Neither seemed at all startled by the perfect synchrony with which they spoke, however.

Ami ignored them both, keeping dark blue eyes firmly fixed on the tense man at her side. "The choice is yours. It always has been." With a waved of a hand around the room she encompassed all who watched the conversation play out, as well as its actual two players. "We all made the choice to be here, Zoisite-san – and ultimately, so did you."

"I made no choice."

Ami's smile faded, but her resolve did not. "Didn't you?" She didn't touch him, but her words were strong enough to draw his eyes to meet hers. "Zoisite-san. Can you help us with Kunzite?"

He sounded both resigned and annoyed as he sighed, folded his arms over his narrow chest. "How do you expect me to help you?"

"He taught you, didn't he?"

"Taught me?" This seemed to amuse Zoisite in a way that not one of his companions could understand. "…well. In a manner of speaking, I suppose so."

"So surely you know something about him," Mamoru pointed out, like he was speaking to a three year old child.

That made Zoisite laugh again, a light broken chuckle that was enough to make anyone wince. Sometimes it didn't really sound he was laughing at all, because surely all laughter is supposed to have _some_ joy in it, rather than just bleak emptiness. "Not enough to outsmart him."

"Sure about that? You just strike me as the type to think around problems…maybe not in the most subtle of ways, but I get the impression that if you want something badly enough, you'll find a way of getting it."

"Oh, that sounds dangerously like a compliment, Endymion-sama."

"Treasure it. I imagine that's the best you'll ever get out of me."

Zoisite abruptly slammed an open hand down on the arm of the couch, breaking up the banter sharply enough to make Usagi start and drop her precious box. "Look. I can't give you advice on Kunzite-sama's weaknesses."

"Why not?" Mamoru immediately challenged, eyes beginning to burn with the joy of getting into a decent tangle with a former enemy who was not yet quite an ally either.

"Because he doesn't _have_ any weaknesses."

"Surely not. I mean, everyone has weaknesses."

"Not Kunzite-sama."

Rei broke in then, looking very unimpressed by this progression of the conversation. "What, so you're saying he's perfect?"

"I'm saying that any weakness he perceived in himself, he purged. He's made of cold, dark ice, Rei-san. You can't break him."

Ami's voice was very soft as she said sensibly: "But ice can melt."

Zoisite had no real idea what made him shudder – the words, or the fact that it was Ami saying them. Her earnest sweet face was painful to watch, and he found he could not look at her as he formulated a reply. "I wouldn't be so sure." Wanting to make her think of something else other than how to melt a man of ice, he threw out: "Besides, you have more to worry about than you know."

Mamoru raised an eyebrow, Zoisite's discomfort not escaping his notice in the slightest. "Beryl?"

"No." The smile that curved his lovely lips was rather darkly amused; the former shitennou resembled his former self more than anyone cared to acknowledge like this. "The girl who's watching you."

"…what?" Luna asked, startled out of staring at Ami's screen from the girl's shoulder.

"I saw a girl last night, out on the street. Or at least I heard her – she was with a man." Crossing his arms in what appeared to be a characteristically smug gesture, Zoisite raised an eyebrow. "She says she wants to meet you. Get _involved_. Interpret at will."

Rei's words were as sharp as the crack of a whip. "Who do you think that person was?"

A nonchalant shrug accompanied his unhelpful reply. "I don't know."

Usagi swallowed, one hand tightening about her handful of Pocky hard enough to crumble it to dust. Strangely she didn't appear to notice what she had done at all. "Was she an enemy?"

"She sounded concerned about you. And like I said – she wants to meet you."

Once again proving that it was impossible to predict the movements of her mind, Usagi suddenly piped up with a rather enthusiastic: "The princess!"

That wiped the wry half-smirk from Zoisite's face, as he sat up a damn sight straighter. "The _princess_?" he repeated with a wrinkled nose, disdain warring with total surprise at the very idea.

"The princess? You think she'd fight?" Mako asked, giving Luna a look. "I mean, I know maybe she's supposed to hold the ginzuishou and the moon-stick but…"

"And if she was the princess, why would she hide from us?" Rei might have been intending to sound as dubious about Usagi's wild theory as Zoisite, but it came out as simple confusion. "We're supposed to protect her, right?"

"This is so screwed up," Zoisite muttered, bowing his head.

Watching his odd body language quietly, ignoring the looks passing between all the others in the room, it was Usagi who spoke next. Directing her words at Zoisite, she asked: "…you really think Kunzite will go for the next nijizuishou?"

"Of course. He's not one to wait for anything he wants." He paused, and when he continued his voice was oddly gentle. "He's dangerous, Usagi-san. Very dangerous."

"He's really cute, though."

"…oh, for…" That was obviously more than the man could handle; with his Usagi-nonsense quota apparently reached and surpassed for the day, Zoisite pushed out of his place and promptly walked out of the small room.

"…why does he always do that when I start talking?"

"I think it's just because you were getting starry-eyed over a guy who used to be, like, his _teacher_, Usagi-chan," Mako laughed, the resonant sound breaking up some of the heaviness that had fallen across the apartment. "I mean, it'd be like…like someone telling YOU that they thought Haruna-sensei was hot!"

"Ewwww!" she shrieked, leaping to her feet in the useless movement of horror. "I didn't need to hear that!"

"So now you know how he feels!" The grin on Mako's face was wide and silly as she reached up a hand to pull Usagi back down to her seat. "Besides, he's like the _enemy_. He probably thinks you're a flake for that, too."

"I'm not a flake!" Usagi pouted, crossing her arms and back-sliding on the couch with the expression of a churlish rain-cloud.

Rubbing at his head, Mamoru decided that though once he'd thought it would be nice to have a younger sister to love and protect, being trapped in his own home with young girls was not making that childhood wish look all that sensible in retrospect. "Can we save the slumber party talk for later, please? Preferably for when I'm dead?"

Usagi sat bolt upright, blue eyes wide in horror. "You're not planning to die, Mamoru-san!"

"Well, if I have to hear about how nice a body that guy has, I might just wish I was dead," he pointed out wryly. Not waiting for Usagi's reply, he stood up and stretched his tired arms. "If I make Zoisite come back in here, will you drop it?"

Apparently not in the mood for an argument, Usagi slumped immediately back into Sulk Mode. "Why can't I just be a normal girl once in a while?"

"Because there's nothing normal about you, Usagi," he said quietly, holding her startled gaze for too long and far too strongly. A deep rich flush crept up Usagi's small face as her stomach decided to twist itself all up in knots; she continued to blush even when Mamoru dropped her gaze, got up, and left the room altogether.

Amused as she was by Usagi's shell-shocked look, Mako still decided to let her off for a few minutes yet. "…so you guys think that girl really could be the princess?"

Rei was shaking her head, though her quiet words seemed more a thought aloud than an actual contribution to the conversation. "Why would she be skulking around in the shadows instead of actually meeting us?"

"And she's got a boyfriend, too!"

"What?" Mako asked, dropping the troubled look she was giving Rei and blinking at Usagi instead.

"Zoisite said she was with a man!" the blonde immediately defended herself, nodding vigorously enough to make it seem as if her head were about to drop off.

"I don't think it's her boyfriend." Instead of being wearied or irritated, Luna's voice was distant; Usagi seemed to be through being perceptive for now, however.

"…then who was it?" she grumpily asked, folding her arms.

Any reply to that was interrupted by Zoisite; elegantly the slim man sailed back into the room to reclaim his previous place beside Ami. When he spoke it was airily, as if he hadn't stormed out at all; Mamoru rolled eyes at this as he took his own seat back. "What are we doing?"

"I guess we need to find the next carrier." That was Mako, speaking slowly as she took in the fact that Usagi still sulked while Luna and Rei appeared as distant as the satellite and planet they were affiliated most with.

Zoisite snorted, showing how truly impressed he was with the strategic skills of these girls. "Then what?"

"Get the crystal?" Usagi said bemusedly as she straightened up and reached for the remainder of her Pocky.

"Great plan. Can I paint the bullseye on your forehead, or what?"

"Zoisite-san, please calm down." Oddly that came from Ami; even more oddly, she laid a small hand upon his lower arm and he did not shake off the gentle touch. "You said it would take a while to locate the carrier? Could you define how long that while would be?"

"A couple hours, perhaps three." The words and tone were both surprisingly co-operative, but then it was becoming increasingly obvious that he appreciated a serious mind to deal with.

"I think we should try a fire reading on the princess." This caught everyone's attention, putting Rei firmly at the centre of it. "Even if this girl isn't the princess, we need to figure out both who she is, and where the princess might be." With a flick of a hand, she indicated Zoisite. "And I'm telling you, if you want to understand anything, you should let me do a reading with you."

It was Mamoru who spoke next, over-riding Zoisite's open mouth. "Why don't you guys go ahead? We'll call you when we've worked out how to find the next nijizuishou carrier and go from there."

"You really think it'll take that long?" Luna asked thoughtfully, seeming to drop whatever was bothering her mind to concentrate fully on the conversation still going on around her.

The snort Zoisite gave then indicated precisely what he thought of people who attempted to rush his genius. "Tokyo's a big place. I'll have to lock onto them." A second snort was far sarcastic as he then added snarkily: "And I do doubt we'll be lucky enough to strike another friend of Endymion-sama's."

Taking the Pocky from a wailing Usagi, Rei kept her eyes squarely on Zoisite as she asked: "Can't you do it at the shrine?"

"You want to break my concentration?" he returned sharply. "We'll meet you there, all right?"

Though Rei made a motion as if to continue the burgeoning argument, Mako's strong hand on her sleeve kept her back. It was in near-silence that the girls gathered their things and left the apartment; only Usagi's forced cheerful humming broke it up at all. Unfortunately, it did make Rei want to sneak up on her from behind and throttle her.

"Well?" asked Mamoru pointedly of Zoisite when they were at last alone; the question was slightly irrelevant when it became obvious Zoisite was already doing something with the shirozuishou. Mamoru did have to admit – the former shitennou might have a tongue in his head that would be better off ripped clean out, but he was very driven when he decided he wanted to do something.

_But really? You knew that long before he started acting like he's on your side. Endymion-sama._

There was not much fuss to the small ritual that Zoisite performed. In an echo of how he had seen the man use the kurozuishou, Zoisite held it at arm's length before him and appeared to concentrate his mind on nothing but the softly vibrating crystal. The resonating energy grew, casting the room into darkness around them both; however the white light it generated was clean, pure. Standing in the shadows created by the light, Mamoru did not feel cast out. Rather, he felt warm, calm…like he could hear a distant voice singing a song that would guide him safely through all perils and trials between him and home.

"Well." Zoisite stretched his fingers out, let the crystal go; it hung under his own power in the air, the image it projected clear even though it wavered. "Off to the old folk's home, by the look of things."

Mamoru's eyes widened, the darkness suddenly feeling far more pervasive, far heavier than it had before. "I don't think so."

"I doubt we're going to find him at a kindergarten, Endymion-sama," returned Zoisite with rolled eyes; even though his eyes were fixed steadily on the crystal, he raised one hand to tug it through his long hair. "Would it really hurt you to think for five seconds?"

"…we need to catch up with Rei-san."

"Why?" The amazement in his voice broke Zoisite's concentration; the image dissolved like so much dissipated smoke as he moved green eyes to Mamoru's startled blue and the shirozuishou clattered to the floor.

"…because that's her _grandfather_…"

* * *

Queen Beryl smiled. Sometimes there was nothing more satisfying than the release of everything one had sought to seal away.

* * *

"So, this is the shrine Rei-san is obsessed with me coming to?"

Mamoru shielded his eyes, looked back down the leaf-strewn path before returning his gaze to the tidy building before them. "Oh, yes."

"Nice enough place," Zoisite granted rather grudgingly as he looked about with a critical eye. "Except maybe for him, he kind of spoils the ambience a bit."

"Who does?" Mamoru was not following Zoisite's gaze, instead preferring to take in the compound in his own way. The shrine had always calmed his restless spirit, but today – with autumn leaves falling like rain and dancing as if fairies across the smooth stone – the breeze felt…unsettled. It was as if something here were holding its breath, just waiting…waiting.

"The hippy."

That caught Mamoru's attention, and he whipped it around completely to the shorter man. "The _what_?"

He followed Zoisite's pointing finger to see a small but spry elderly man running after a far taller individual. Oddly, he was dressed in the traditional garb of a shrine attendant, though the image was certainly ruined by the mane of shaggy brown hair.

"Oh, and the nijizuishou carrier's with him," Zoisite added thoughtfully, apparently no longer bemused by the incongruous sight before them. "Just my luck."

"Hold it." Mamoru's sharp reflexes allowed him to catch the former shitennou's arm, stop him from moving forward despite the strength in those slim muscles that Zoisite still possessed.

"What? I thought you wanted it?"

"Sure, but it'd be only polite to give Rei-san some _warning_, before you bring the Dark Kingdom down on her elderly grandfather's head!"

"Oh, I don't know. He looks like he could handle it." And indeed, Zoisite was watching the little old man rain blows down on the helpless hippy with a broad smirk. "Hell, I'm almost wishing I was still working for Beryl – she'd love a youma who was just as useful in human form."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

"Whatever. If we're not going to get it now, hurry up and point me at wherever those girls are."

"I suppose they'll be in Rei-san's room."

"You know the way to her bedroom?" This confession earned Mamoru as very appraising look indeed. "Despite the fact you dress like a moron and spout more crap than a sewerage outlet, I never would have pegged you for being interested in little girls."

"I'm not interested in little girls!"

"No, really, it's okay. Better that than…I don't know. Probably isn't anything much worse than that."

"You really think you should be addressing your prince like that?"

"You really think you're my prince?"

In the end Mamoru decided it was far more effective to ignore Zoisite than get dragged into one of his little "debates;" with that decided, he knocked on the frame of the door and slid open the paper screen. "Hey, girls."

Mako looked up from where she was sprawled across Rei's futon, sipping at a small cup of tea. "Hey, you guys sure got over here early!"

Zoisite, on the other hand, was holding his hand to his head and shaking it. Following his gaze it was easy enough to see that he was annoyed by the fact that Usagi was laughing her head off like some sort of demented hyena over a thick manga tankubon. "…look, would you just stop reading these damn comics and do something usef – oh, _shit_."

"What?" Mamoru asked, giving him a look that assured everyone present that he indeed thought of Zoisite something of a complete flake, former enemy or not.

The already pale skin was by now near-translucent; the faint shaking of one hand was able to be discerned even as he moved it swifter than the strike of a cobra to snatch the offending manga from Usagi's hand.

"HEY! That's mine!"

Rei was rolling her own eyes at this, apparently not yet bothered by the odd light in Zoisite's burning eyes. "Oh, for crying out loud, Usagi. It's my damn manga."

Zoisite was not interested in the apparent owner of the manga, however; he had already turned to the startled Ami to shake the small book in her face. "…who is this? Is she real? What the hell is she?" he demanded, the questions staccato and fired as rapidly as the ammunition of a machine gun.

"…um…that's Sailor V." Ami's eyes were wide behind her glasses as she reached up to adjust them, the movement of own hands belying a faint tremor of her own.

"Does she really exist, or is she just a manga heroine or what?" The question was urgent, and Ami was obviously not answering fast enough for he demanded in a near ugly tone: "Tell me!"

"Watch it," Mamoru warned from the doorway as he observed how helpless Ami was under the full onslaught of Zoisite's single-minded intensity. He had not moved to stop him yet, but the way he spoke assured all listening that he was on the verge of it.

Gathering her not inconsiderable wits about her, Ami swallowed and met the dark green gaze fully. "I don't know. She…she was an urban legend in England." She paused as she dropped her eyes, and then looked to her computer for precious back-up. "I think it all started about a year and a half ago," she said slowly as she tapped furiously on her computer, "and it then inspired the manga, the anime movies here. She's really very popular and people have claimed to have seen her both in London and Japan, but…I really couldn't tell you how real she was. Luna?"

The little cat sighed, looking more frustrated with her lack of knowledge than any of her companions could ever understand. "Pass."

"Why do you ask?" Ami asked quietly, removing her glasses as she looked up again at the too-pale man. He had retreated from her somewhat, but although his earlier fire had burned out he still looked deeply troubled. "What's wrong?"

"I know her." The manga's spine cracked audibly as he tightened his fingers on the book. "I…know her."

Usagi seemed to waver a moment between defending the helpless manga or staying on actual topic. In the end, she just said in a voice half-excited, half filled with trepidation: "So is she a senshi?"

"I don't remember any Sailor V," he dismissed, "But then I don't remember much. All I know…I know that I knew her, during the Silver Millennium." With that he flipped open the book, presented the page Usagi had been reading when he had originally glared over her shoulder. In the frame V-chan declared her affiliation with love and justice, hair wild about her masked face as she pointed accusingly at the villains of the piece. "This is only a drawing, sure, but there's something…do you have any photographs, Ami-san?"

"This is the closest they've ever come to proving she really exists," Ami confirmed, holding out the small computer so that Zoisite could see the blurry night-time photograph of the urban heroine.

He stared at it for only a moment, then looking away as if the image pained him to see. "She was part of Queen Serenity's court. I don't…"

Mamoru's voice was flat as it echoed through the room from where he still stood, leaning on the frame of the screens. "Is she the Moon Princess?"

"…I…"

"It would explain how you could have thought it was Usagi," Rei suddenly said, glancing between V-chan and Usagi with a critical eye. "Blonde hair, blue eyes…?"

Zoisite traced the symbol marking the girl's forehead for a moment; he then drew it back as if the inanimate picture had burned him. "She wears the sigil of the Moon Kingdom."

"We need to find her. Ask her if she is the princess…or if she knows where she is. Luna, what do you think?"

"I've never been told anything about her. I've asked." The cat's voice was frustrated, but there was an element of resignation about it that seemed very unlike the usually optimistic moon-cat. She wouldn't even meet the eyes of those around her, apparently preferring to watch the floor as if it held answers to all the mysteries of creation. "Maybe that's why. They didn't want us to meet her too soon."

Usagi's uncomplicated question spoke what all the senshi and their uneasy allies could not help but think to themselves. "Why wouldn't they want us to meet her?"

Rei stood up, command in every nuance of her movement. "I'll consult the fire." She then added wryly as she straightened her hakama, "…that is, if that idiot Yuuichirou hasn't already put it out. One day on the job, and he's already running the place into the ground."

"Yuuichirou?" Mamoru asked with a furrowed brow, though then his frown cleared as he realised what the name actually meant in the greater scheme of things. "Oh. Zoisite's hippy. I was wondering why I hadn't seen him around before."

Still, before Rei could confirm this one way or another, everything was interrupted by a tremendous crash from outside.

"What the hell was that?" Mako asked, already leaping to her feet and looking like she was spoiling for a fight. She was quickly at the door as Mamoru himself spun about to take in the scene before them, the tallest members of the group standing together as the voice of the old man reverberated through the entire room.

"JED! YOU'RE BACK, YOU WORTHLESS BUM!"

"What the…" Rei was pushing past Mamoru with the others hot on her heels. Her slightly unintentional swearing spoke well of the attitude of the entire group. "…holy shit, that's Jadeite!"

Zoisite immediately ducked back into the room, flattening himself against the nearest screen-wall. His lips were so tight as to be utterly bloodless, fingers clenched into fists at his sides. "He can't see me."

"What?" asked Rei with a frown as she cast a look back at the hiding man.

"Why?" Usagi echoed, with a blink that was enough to make a cow's blank look seem intelligent.

It of course garnered an absolutely incredulous look from the man who had once been their most efficient enemy. "You want to keep me around as your nijizuishou detector or what? He can't see me!"

Usagi looked outside to see Rei's grandfather berating the calm blond man before him, and winced at the familiarity of the attractive features. With the beginnings of a wail, she pulled back inside to direct at Zoisite: "I thought you said he wouldn't be bothering us ever again!"

"Well, it's just my flaming luck that Beryl changed her SOP the second I left the Kingdom!" He swore under his breath, looking at the shirozuishou he had just pulled from his pocket. "I can't believe this."

"I'm guessing he's here to get the nijizuishou!" Usagi said suddenly, eyes lighting up with both alarm and delight at her own mental prowess.

"…and what a guess that was." These words were echoed by Zoisite rolling his eyes skyward, before closing them tight. "Looks like you don't need me to test out whether or not the shirozuishou releases youma. Jadeite's bound to try it sooner or later."

Rei's own lips tightened at this idea. "I don't know if I want to wait for that."

Cracking one eye open as he tilted his head in Rei's direction, Zoisite pointed out politely enough: "I'm not going out there with this so long as he's around."

"Hey. Guys. This Jadeite guy?" Mako's words were incredulous as she turned from where she, Luna, Mamoru and Ami were keeping an eye on the returned shitennou. "He looks like he's _apologising_."

"Apologising? Huh. Being charming was always more Nephrite's way of getting stuff done, rather than Jadeite's. Wonder if the crystal scrambled his brain?"

"I'm beginning to wonder what scrambled grandfather's," Rei muttered, dragging her hand through her hair and scowling. "I'm busting his ass right now."

"That's probably not a good idea." Zoisite's voice was low in warning but sing-song enough to grate on the nerves of even a saint. Hino Rei was no saint at all, however.

"So what are you suggesting? I sit here and let that bastard screw around with my grandfather? I don't think so!"

Mamoru surprised all of those watching as he shot out an arm to block Rei's angry passage, eyes fixed firmly on the odd tête-à-tête playing out before them. "Just wait a second…let's see what he does."

"…he's walking away." That was Mako, adjusting the ball cap on her brown hair in a nervous gesture that was characteristic whenever she happened to wear the thing. It made Rei swear again, this time in a fashion that had even Zoisite looking suitably impressed at her range and inflection.

"I think grandpa just hired that bastard back! What the…"

Rei was on a roll and could have gone on in this vein for a much longer period had Zoisite not interrupted her. It was no intentional, however, and the words were more in fact directed at the shirozuishou itself. "Hey, it's—"

Ami frowned up from where she was frantically gathering data on Jadeite on her little computer; her eyes went as wide as dinner plates and she came very close to dropping the gadget altogether, "Zoisite-san! Stop it!"

"I'm not doing anything!"

But even though the slender man claimed he was not doing a damn thing, it was obvious why one would think that he was. The shirozuishou had shot from his grasping fingers across the site, glowing as white-hot as any poker left too long in a blazing fire. Before any of the girls could even think to react, it roared up to Rei's baffled grandfather and encased him in white light.

"NO!" Rei watched her grandfather collapse as the latest nijizuishou erupted out of his chest in a dazzling shower of sparks and light; the fire in her eyes was hard and furious as she turned to the dumbstruck man. "Zoisite, you lying scheming backstabbing _bastard_!"

"Whoa. Calm down. I don't think he did it – and we've got to get out there to – Rei!"

It was too late for Mamoru to salvage anything decent out of this situation, however. Rei was already racing out across the central square of the shrine compound, raven-black hair trailing out behind her like a banner of ebony. A crow screamed in the distance, sending a cool chill snaking down his spine.

Jadeite was himself staring at the fallen man in fascination, forehead creased. "Interesting development," he murmured, kneeling down in his pristine uniform to reach a gloved hand for the glinting crystal.

Rei slid into the dirt like a star baseball player going for the home run, one hand snagging the nijizuishou as she skidded past. Immediately she pushed herself back into a kneeling position that made her look as prepared as an enraged lioness for battle; still, not even those still far away in her room missed the flash of pain that crossed her lovely face as she stayed between her fallen grandfather and the blond shitennou.

"We have to help her!" Usagi said, already poised to run out screaming after her friend. Once again it was the steady hand of Mamoru that injected some sense into the situation.

"Transform," he advised. "You go out into battle, Usagi-chan, you go out there dressed for it."

"…chan?"

Usagi's wonder was of no consequence to Rei, who was still alone in her painful position with the crystal clutched protectively in one hand. "Back off," she gritted out, wincing as she tried again to put weight on a twisted and grazed ankle. "Didn't you hear me? _I said piss off_!"

He only shook his head at this, stepping forward with one hand held in a position that suggested sorcery was imminent. "I don't want to have to do this."

"Step away from the lady, creep!" The cry was from Yuuichirou, come onto the scene with a broom in hand and righteous fury in his eyes. Brandishing the makeshift weapon in the way a three year old might, he stepped closer to the blond man who wasn't even looking at him at all.

"But I will do it anyway if I must," Jadeite said with a sigh that was far too long-suffering to make any sense in context of the situation. With one simple swipe of his hand, Yuuichirou sailed through the air a full five metres before landing in the dust in a crumpled heap.

"Yuuichirou-san!" Rei's scream was strangled as she stared at the immobile man, eyes burning deep with rage and fear.

"He'll be all right," Jadeite said, causing her to whip her attention back to him with a heated hateful glare. "A bit of a headache, perhaps. But I didn't kill him."

"Like I'm going to believe that!"

Jadeite looked oddly surprised at that, perhaps even mildly hurt. "I had no reason to kill him," he explained, hands in a gesture near supplicating. That only made Rei scoff more as she tried again to get into a standing position from which she would not collapse.

"Like that would stop scum like you."

He seemed to have tired of the argument now, stepping closer to her with that hand extended again. "Give that to me."

Clutching the precious crystal to her breast, Rei spat in the dust at his booted feet. "No."

"Come on, Hino-san." Insultingly to the girl, his voice had actually become cajoling; it only infuriated her more to think that he would believe she would be done over by the kindness of a handsome man after all that he had done, and still wanted to do. "You know it would be so much easier for all of us if you just gave it to me."

"Go to hell and die."

"It's the other way around. At any rate, I do believe I've been there, done that already." Quietly he knelt before her as he closed a warm gloved hand over hers. "Now. Can I have the nijizuishou?"

"Get away from her, you creep!"

Straightening up, Jadeite turned his attention from the furious but injured Rei to the three girls standing at his back. "Sailor Moon. Long time, no see."

"Weren't you listening, jerk?" It was Mako with the names that time, hands on narrow hips and lightning flashing in her green eyes. "You may be cute, but we don't let Dark Kingdom flunkies off for that!"

That had Usagi giving her a sideways look that was rather surprised. "Don't we?"

"No! We don't!"

Rei rolled her eyes, but for once she was deeply glad of Usagi's battlefield nonsense. Steeling herself for the pain, she pushed herself to her feet and gasped. The agony lancing up her right leg did not stop her at all from turning and racing back across the compound to safety.

_Sorry, Grandpa,_ she thought to herself as she flew with the wind. _But I think you'll be okay for now…Sailor Moon and the others won't let that jerk touch you or Yuuichirou…I've got to protect this, for now._

"Where are you going?" Jadeite called after her, and the group might have been more taken aback by the blatant surprise in those words had they not been preoccupied with the task of kicking his ass.

Mako pushed in front of her group, hands still on her hips as she struck a pose. "You want her, you go through us."

Jadeite was pressing a hand to his forehead, oddly calm in the face of a rapidly degenerating situation. "This would all be over so much faster if you'd just let me have the nijizuishou, you know," he explained easily, giving them a look that might have been beseeching had it not been equally hard.

"Fat chance!"

Jadeite rolled his eyes, drew up his hands. "I don't want to do this," he warned, hands already beginning to glow with blue energy.

"Do what?"

Sailor Moon's inane question was very quickly answered by the strong beams of energy-rope that curled out from Jadeite's open palms; all three shrieked as they were promptly caught and pulled backward. Strung to the trees dotted about the central square, they struggled uselessly.

"Supreme…_thunder_!"

Jupiter's attack was directed back into her own body by the rope that bound her tightly; the only two girls could only watch in horror. "Jupiter!" Mercury and Moon chorused together; Sailor Moon struggled more strongly against her bonds with a surge of energy at the sight of her friends in pain and in danger.

_I've got to help them_, she thought fiercely, her moon-stick already coming to hand. _This is what I'm here to do…to help my friends! And I'll do it and no Dark Kingdom flunky will stop me!_

With the ball now back in Jadeite's court, it was time for the tables to turn again; Tuxedo Kamen used this opportunity to join the fray. Having hung back as something of a back-up plan to begin with, he now saw it was time to come in and save the day, as it were. With his cane at the ready in his right hand, a rose held tightly in the left, he came forward to give Jadeite a dark look of warning. "Let them go," he said calmly, cool command lacing every word.

"Oh. I forgot about you," Jadeite said, with one of those oddly patient sighs escaping him again. "Can't see how I could, mind you. Even back then there was always something so familiar about you."

"What are you talking about?" he asked sharply, the way in which he stalked closer intimating that he was not at all amused by the situation.

"Where's Hino-san?" With wary eyes Jadeite both dodged the question and kept watch as Tuxedo Kamen stepped carefully about him. "She's Mars, isn't she?"

"Oh, man! I forgot!" Sailor Moon's eyes were wide as something terrible forced its way into her brain at the half-heard words of the conversation between the two men. At Jupiter's questioningly blank look, she said agitatedly: "He knows who we are!"

"What?" Jupiter asked, quite baffled.

"Jadeite found out who we were!" Sailor Moon explained in an exponentially worsening panic to Jupiter, still struggling fruitlessly at her binds like a fish at the end of a line. "What if he tells Beryl!"

Back in the face-off, Tuxedo Kamen stilled and faced the shitennou straight on. "What do you want?" he demanded, the rose glinting in the sun like it was covered in dew.

"The nijizuishou." The question seemed to have surprised the first shitennou greatly. "And I'll keep her little secret, if she'll hand over the nijizuishou."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"So you can tell her." He motioned at the trapped girls, shrugging slightly as he did so. "I'm not sure that they can hear me." As he looked at them, however, a deep frown darkened his features. "Gathered another senshi, did you? But still missing the last, I see."

"What business is that of yours?"

"You'd be surprised." Shaking his head, Jadeite crossed his hands at the wrist; as he slid them up and apart he drew two swords of light from the air itself. Tuxedo Kamen had to hide his shock at the sight of the short swords; he had never seen Jadeite armed and he hadn't quite been expecting twin kodachi now. Also unexpected was Jadeite's mildly apologetic tone. "I don't particularly wish to fight you, Tuxedo Kamen. But I will go through you to get to Hino-san."

He tightened his wrist, held the cane as a rapier. "You can try."

The fight was brief but harsh; both men were fully on the offensive as the three trapped senshi watched helplessly. Though Jupiter tried again – without success – to loosen herself, they remained as trapped as they had been to begin with.

"This is hopeless!" Sailor Moon wailed as she wriggled painfully in the energy bonds; though the heavy weight of the moon-stick was comforting in her right hand, she was too far from the two men to be sure she could aim at the shitennou. "And Tuxedo Kamen-sama is in trouble!"

Indeed he was; the skill Jadeite was showing with the twin blades was overwhelming the man who had not held a true sword in a thousand years. He was driven to one knee with his cane blocking a double blow when a high voice interrupted the fight.

"Don't hurt him."

Tuxedo Kamen swore under his breath, and then raised his breathless voice to shout at the girl: "Stay back!"

Jadeite pressed forward, hard; Tuxedo Kamen fell back, hitting his head hard enough to knock him out cold. The shitennou paid no heed to this, instead turning with his swords held at his sides to approach the limping Rei. "Please give me the nijizuishou."

Her eyes were wide as she snorted at this; her stance did not weaken even as he stepped near-reverently over the fallen form of Tuxedo Kamen and came to stand before her. She gritted her teeth and held strong even with the screaming pain in her foot; not even the gentle hand that then came up to grasp at her throat could stop her from gasping out an incredulous: "_Please_!"

On the verge of screaming for Zoisite, the moon-stick beginning to hum softly in her shaking hand, all sound escaped Sailor Moon's mouth when a beam of bright golden light arced through the air and bit into the flesh at Jadeite's wrist. Immediately he drew back from Rei, the girl falling to her knees with the nijizuishou still clasped in her hands.

"Not too polite, is it? Messing with a cute girl like that." The slim form of the girl in the unfamiliar fuku was silhouetted against the sun at her back as she struck a pose atop the roof, but her voice was altogether too familiar to the other shitennou watching the scene from the relative safety of Rei's room with a blade of his own in hand. "Sailor Moon! Now!"

Too startled by the appearance of the blonde girl to notice her release, Sailor Moon could only stare with adoring amazement at the girl who had saved them. "Sailor V-chan!"

"Do it!"

"Ye-yes!" Hurriedly she turned to Jadeite, not wanting to let her idol down now. Grabbing her tiara and feeling it come alive in heat and light in her gloved hand, she shouted: "You're dusted!"

"Not going to try to heal me, Sailor Moon?" Jadeite asked with an arched eyebrow, not seeming at all concerned by his impending fate.

"What?" she asked, steady hand faltering on the blazing disc that had been her tiara; the memory of the moon-stick humming in her hand was powerful and her mind was set askew at the peculiar question.

…_he sounds like he **wants** me to heal him…! But why would a shitennou…Zoisite didn't even want me to…did he?_

"You don't need to, anyway." With a bowed of his head, he said politely: "Your secret is still safe with me, Tsukino-san, but you want to keep it that way…next time we meet over crystal, hand yours over."

The flung tiara passed only through thin air as Jadeite vanished completely.

"That jerk!" she cried, frustrated and confused. All those emotions were temporarily forgotten as she remembered something far more pressing and turned around to face the roof. Her blue eyes were as crestfallen as she saw that Sailor V had vanished. "No! Where'd she go?" she groaned, hands falling limply to her sides.

Things were silent for a moment as Mercury and Jupiter broke their defensive formation and split up; Mercury headed to where Tuxedo Kamen was stirring while Jupiter looked around and noted only Yuuichirou seemed without a nursemaid now Rei had gone to her grandfather. Sailor Moon only turned from where she stared at empty space when Zoisite walked slowly across the courtyard to her, a sword of silver and jade in hand. He seemed scarcely aware of the curved blade, however; his attention was firmly on Sailor Moon.

"Jadeite knew who you are?" he asked her quietly; she looked to him in surprise, and the nodded miserably.

Over hearing the words, Mercury looked up from where she was helping a groaning Tuxedo Kamen to sit up in the dirt. "He did," she confirmed, noting the sword held limply in Zoisite's hand but refraining from commenting on it as she noted his complete indifference to it. "So he never told Beryl then?"

"If he had told her, she would've told us. And then, Nephrite would've fried you long ago if he'd known, and she would have made sure he did." Zoisite looked down at the sword in his hand, frowning as if he'd only just realised it was still there. "And I guess that's the Sailor V mystery cleared up."

"But who is she? What's she doing?" Tuxedo Kamen asked as he touched the back of his head with a wince. "And geez. I never would've challenged Jadeite if I'd known he had swords like _that_…he always have those, or what?"

"No. I've never seen them before." But Zoisite couldn't help but think that that was not entirely true; he might have thought on it harder if Tuxedo Kamen hadn't spoken so suddenly.

"And since when do _you_ have a scimitar like that?"

"It appeared just as I was thinking I would come out and play prince, rescue you," he said bitingly, swinging the sword lightly through the air. It vanished as he slowed its arc, Tuxedo Kamen's grasping hand touching only air. "Good thing Sailor V showed up. You don't need Beryl knowing I'm here, that's for damn sure."

"She helped us," Sailor Moon said, thoughtful and quiet as she knelt down beside Mercury, looking back over to Rei. For some reason she longed to hold the moon-stick again; uneasily she thought that perhaps it was going to be harder than she'd ever thought to hand it over to the princess…especially as she'd never really wanted it in the first place. "Didn't she?"

"Doesn't really mean anything though, does it?" Zoisite muttered, and closed his own eyes tiredly; he was rubbing at his left temple like his hand needed something to do now it was without the heavy sword that had felt so _right_ in his grip.

Rei looked down at the crystal still in her warm grasp, then closed her hand around it even more tightly. One look at her collapsed grandfather and Yuuichirou had her clutching it so tightly her heart felt like it might explode. "We've got other stuff to worry about now."

"Yeah…yeah!" Letting her transformation lapse, Usagi got up to join Rei at her grandfather's side. "There's the ginzuishou…and the princess…we have to do it, don't we?"

"Sure, Usagi-chan," Mamoru said tiredly as his own transformed self faded. "All for the princess." With a weary effort, Mamoru managed to get to his feet to move to where Rei still sat beside her grandfather.

"Rei-san?" he asked her, his hand lightly on her shoulder.

"What?" she asked, not looking up from where she gently touched her grandfather's face; he seemed very peaceful, as if sleeping. It seemed the white crystal was kinder on its victims than the black, leaving them only deeply asleep for a period rather than metamorphosed into a dark creature who was enslaved to Beryl.

"Look after that nijizuishou, won't you?"

"With my life. Endymion-sama." She bowed her head so that her long hair fell across her face, masked her eyes. "I'd better get Mako-chan to help me get him inside."

Zoisite watched Rei as she, Mako and Ami made to pick up the unconscious man; the half-awoken Yuuichirou seemed to be impeding more than helping the situation, and Usagi acting a foreman was not helping matters at all. Instead of moving to help them, he walked carefully over to where Mamoru watched proceedings with a pained expression. It was difficult to tell if it was his headache or the scene before him causing the expression.

"What did she call you?" he asked mock-idly even as the lightly-swaying Mamoru opened his mouth to ask why he wasn't making himself more useful.

With a shake of his head, Mamoru shoved pride aside leaned on the former shitennou. "Looks like you're not the only one," he muttered, and winced at the pain in his head. "And you could at least help your _prince_ inside."

Oddly, Tuxedo Kamen's brush off had him thinking only of Jadeite's odd behaviour. "No," said Zoisite to himself as he supported Mamoru's weight in the walk across the shrine, thoughts quietly scattered to the four winds. "Perhaps I'm not the only one after all."

END CHAPTER SIX


	7. Under Pressure

**Author's Notes:** Just a quick note to say to those reading and reviewing – thank you for your support. These chapters of the story have been sitting around on my harddrive for over a year now, and I've only just starting posting them on a whim (thanks, flufflybunny!). I didn't do it earlier because I didn't think I _was_ going to finish this, but for some reason…well. I don't really like leaving things undone. 

You know, I hate stories that have those comments at the start saying: "read & review or i wont update hee!11!11!"…but I figure that I might as well say something of that ilk myself. I'm currently only posting what I have finished from a year ago, and I am only going to finish writing this if people genuinely want to see where I was going with it. This isn't because I'm a whore for attention – it is simply that with a full time job and a billion cantankerous original characters resident in my frontal lobe, I only have a little time to write fanfic. I myself know exactly how the story finishes. If you want me to share that with you, well. You need only ask.

**Seven: Under Pressure**

_In which it is discovered it is third time unlucky/it is revealed that Mamoru isn't the only knight available for damsels in distress/Luna is declared boy-crazy by the princess of the name and/a new player enters the field and steals the ball in the final seconds of the game._

"You have failed me, Jadeite."

"Yes."

The red-headed queen found herself raising at least a mental eyebrow at this; Jadeite's reply had been very calm and completely without guile. Nothing in the way in which he stood, fist clasped reverently to breast with head bowed low, suggested any agitation at all; his words had been even and though without sarcasm, had been also without shame or plea. Though Jadeite had never been her definition of a _snivelling coward_, he had worn his emotions far more outwardly than this before his time in deep thought.

_Perhaps I left him in there too long after all…but then I never did intend to release him until she awoke. One must take what comes before them as opportunity, one supposes. _

Leaning to one side in her throne, the movement intentionally casual in a fashion that was anything but, she asked: "Who was the interference?"

Jadeite did not raise his head, eyes still trained on the highly polished surface of the floor below. "I do not know for certain, but I suspect it was Sailor V."

"She's troubled us before, certainly," Beryl mused, turning thoughtful eyes to her greatest shitennou. "Kunzite. What brings her to Japan? You reported that she had dropped out of sight in Britain."

The white-haired man stood at attention but did not bow his head in the same subservient manner as Jadeite. Rather, he looked directly at his queen as he gave his assessment of the status quo. "It would appear she has returned, but in Japan now as you say. It does not overly surprise me, my queen; much of the activity relating to our own projects has been concentrated in the Tokyo area so it is hardly unexpected that Sailor V should be attracted to it."

Only at this did Jadeite seem to snap out of his pose; he looked up and directly at Kunzite, obviously startled. "You know of Sailor V?"

"Kunzite has been covertly monitoring the girl for some time." Beryl then waved a hand in dismissal, a rather playful tone in her voice. That of course was far from comforting for either shitennou, both of whom knew perfectly well what Beryl like to do for fun. "I had thought it would more efficacious if he played it quietly and close to his chest. Obviously I expected too much."

"You gave no orders to dispose of the girl, my queen."

Beryl was entirely unimpressed by this answer. "So you need orders to kill an enemy now, Kunzite? I would have thought more of you." Before either could seek an answer to this, she blew out a frustrated breath and turned the full weight of her gaze to the younger of the pair. "Jadeite. Go find the last nijizuishou and do not allow it to fall into the hands of Kamen or any of those girls. I will not tolerate further failure from you."

"Understood."

"Kunzite. I wish you to watch the actual extraction and retrieval as potential back-up for Jadeite. In the meantime, continue your research into the forging of the ginzuishou. There is surely an alchemical process which we can utilise to bring it to its true form."

Knowing that there was little point in challenging her orders so directly, Kunzite merely bowed his head in acceptance. "I believe so, my queen."

Once again she returned her attention to the lesser. "Jadeite?"

"Yes?"

"If you can actually get those remaining nijizuishou at the time of collection of the last, do so. Otherwise, use the opportunity to consider your later options towards obtaining them."

"So we have your permission to kill at will, my queen?"

This remark, though spoken once again without irony by Jadeite, still earned him an extremely dangerous look. "I wish for the ginzuishou. If I need those girls alive to make it, so be it."

"But why should you need them alive?"

"I believe the princess to be among them." A look towards Kunzite caused a slow, amused smile to curl up her dark lips. "Her blood might be useful in Kunzite's hands, as he seeks to bring his queen the ginzuishou."

"And bring my queen the ginzuishou I shall."

Beryl's lazy smile vanished as she looked from Kunzite's impassive face to Jadeite; the order was a short and simple bark. "Go."

Jadeite vanished at once; certainly he had learned never to be told twice to do anything. It was quickly obvious why only he had been asked to depart; Beryl's warning to Kunzite was thoughtful and dark.

"Watch him, Kunzite. He seems…peculiar, since his awakening."

"Of course."

_That damned Zoisite_, she thought sourly under her breath as her most powerful servant left her presence. _As silly and vain a creature as he was, at least he could be counted on to do anything for his dear Kunzite-sama. Jadeite, however…I must keep an eye of my own on him. Loyal as he once was, I wonder. I do wonder indeed._

* * *

"Hi, Zoisite."

The former shitennou leaned on the doorframe, raised an eyebrow at the blonde girl. "Password?"

She blinked, and succeeded in looking as blank as the Great Wall of China painted freshly white. "Huh?"

A rather amused smile curved his lips in a way that could have been rather disturbing for Usagi, had he not stepped backward to hold the door open for her. "Joke. Ha ha?"

"Um…yeah." She laughed a little nervously but didn't step inside; instead she peered around the slim form and into the quiet apartment. "Is Mamoru-san here?"

"Yes. He's in the bathroom, actually."

At this, Usagi had the grace to look rather embarrassed. "Really?"

"Yes. Really." With a rather staged yawn, Zoisite idly covered his mouth and said off-handedly: "I actually strung him up in the shower after I beat him to death with the toilet brush. I was planning to make my getaway around about now, but then you knocked on the door. Guess I'm going to have to do something about you, now that you're a witness to murder most foul."

Usagi really did take a step back at this, blue eyes as wide as dinner-plates. "_Really_?"

"No, not really," he muttered as he raked his loose hair back with fingers curled into a rough approximation of a comb. "Are you coming in or not?"

Holding her bag before her almost like she thought it would make a decent shield should Zoisite attempt to become sociopathic, she tried to peek around the slender man again. "Is Mamoru-san really here?"

"No, he went down to the store. We ran out of milk."

Something about Zoisite's voice as he said that – quite possibly it was the odd note of glee – had her asking: "Oh?"

"I threw it out the window when he told me I was a vain self-centred little toad." And though he was attempting to be matter of fact about it, Usagi could hear deep amusement in his voice. "I don't know why he was so upset about it, really."

"So he left you by yourself?"

"I did stop needing a baby-sitter several years ago," he returned dryly. "Aren't you supposed to be in school, anyway?"

"Well…yeah." She looked down at the floor, and then looked up again from underneath her heavy bangs at the man still leaning on Mamoru's doorframe. "But I wasn't feeling well."

"Don't they send you kids home when you're sick?"

"Not sick like that." Usagi gave up on standing in the hallway, instead deciding to take advantage of the nearest wall. As she leaned against it Zoisite came out further, still leaning slightly on the frame as he continued to watch the silly little girl who could be so suddenly serious. "It's just…everything, I guess. After yesterday…what happened…everything feels so wrong!" The words just burst out of her, seeming to surprise even Usagi herself.

"In what way?"

"Just…" Her misery was obvious as she said quietly: "I can't stop thinking about it."

"You mean Sailor V?"

"No. Yes. Kind of. That, too." The frustration was evident in her voice, but the way her knuckles whitened as she gripped the handle of her book-bag more tightly served well to prove it further. "It's just…I tried to kill Jadeite."

"No surprises there, Usagi-san. I would've tried it myself, had our friend V-chan not decided on a bit of deus ex machina."

Blinking, Usagi looked up from where she was watching the toe of her school shoe scuff the carpet in the hallway. "Deus ex whatsit?"

Folding his arms impatiently over his chest, he all but snapped: "Just finish what you were saying."

"Um. Yeah." Though she was beginning to wonder if talking to Zoisite about all this was a good idea, she kept going. After all, she wasn't even entirely sure why she'd come; talking to Mamoru about it all might not have been much better. As much as…well, she didn't _like_ him…he was an all right guy, but…not…

_Get it together, Usagi!_

She took a deep breath and started over. "Okay. It was…I mean…when V-chan released us, I had the moon-stick in my hand, didn't I? But I didn't even think then to heal him. I just…I wanted to hurt him. Because he was hurting my friends." Though she still looked directly at the ground, her eyes were obviously filling up with tears like storm-drains in a flash flood. "But…that's not a reason for me to want to hurt him, is it?"

"Usagi-san?"

"Yeah?" she sniffled as she looked up.

"You shouldn't talk to me about stuff like this."

She bit her lip as she looked away again from Zoisite's unmoving green gaze; her voice was barely above a whisper when she said: "I'm sorry."

His slow sigh made her look up at him again, this time in surprise. "I'm just not exactly on the straight and narrow myself here. I really do doubt that my moral advice would help much with the salvation of your own soul."

"Yeah. I guess." For a short time silence reigned as she continued to scuff at the carpet; the topic of conversation was abruptly altered as she asked without warning: "Why don't you like me?"

"What?"

Usagi was taken aback by Zoisite's incredulous look; slightly uncertain now she tried to elaborate. "It's just…you seem to think I say dumb things a lot."

"You do say dumb things a lot." At her hurt look, he added: "It's just the truth. It's not going to kill you."

"It sure hurts, though."

The bark of laughter was as sharp and faceted as a shattered stained-glass window. "I should know."

"…_do_ you hate me?" Usagi asked in a very small voice. "For doing to you what I think I should have done to Jadeite?"

"No." With another too-heavy sigh Zoisite came out and joined in her leaning against the wall. Crossing his ankles over one another, he sought from himself a brief confession. "At first I wanted to. But now? No. I don't hate you."

"But you don't like me very much?"

It was obvious to Usagi that he was struggling with the situation as he blew out a long breath, but something in her mind told him not to give him an easy out. "It's not that I don't like you. It's more that…you make me uneasy."

"The way Mamoru-san does?"

That earned her a rather sharp look from the former shitennou; in all honesty he was rather surprised at her perceptiveness. She'd never struck him as a particularly intelligent girl, but he was beginning to think he should begin to reassess his views on her. "Not exactly that way," he explained voice slow and careful. "He makes me half-remember things I can't actually remember at all. You…you make me feel bad."

"How?" Usagi was in fact rather horrified to think that _she_ could make anybody feel bad; just the thought of it was tying up her poor heart in knots.

The look Zoisite was giving her was strictly unreadable, his voice flat. "You make me feel I should be more than what I am." With those words said, he looked up towards the ceiling as if he expected to see straight through it to the world outside, to a sky where he could read the stars even though it was still blue with the light of day. "I wonder if anyone's ever told you this before, but you're a star."

"A star?" Of all the things that she had expected Zoisite to say then, that sure hadn't made the list at all.

"Bright. Brilliant. Shining. A deep hope." The seeming compliment had an edge to it simply because he was giving her a rather peculiar assessing look as he spoke them aloud. "Am I scaring you yet?"

"Kinda."

That really did make Zoisite chuckle, though the sound seemed far less bitter than what he usually came up with. "What scares me, you know, is thinking that if this is what you are…what in heaven is the princess going to be like?"

With furrowed brow and bitten lip, Usagi asked: "What do you mean?"

"I don't remember enough to be certain, but you must have been the leader of her personal guard." With a raised eyebrow he pointed out to her: "You're Sailor _Moon_, remember? Stands to reason you were the Moon Princess's captain of the guard."

"No way! That would mean I…we…we were _all_ back in the Silver Millennium? But I don't remember anything!"

Zoisite only shrugged at that, but given that he was a living breathing talking walking example of memory loss relating to the Silver Millennium, he didn't really have to do much more than that anyway.

"So you really don't remember anything much at all either?"

"No." As she opened her mouth, he swiftly cut her off by adding: "And for the last time, I don't hate you for what you did. I should really thank you."

Slumping her shoulders and returning to mangling the carpet with the toe of her shoe, she asked quietly: "So why didn't I do it for Jadeite? I mean…_you _hurt my friends, too."

"Nobody's perfect, Usagi-san."

The silence between them then couldn't quite be called companionable, but it was enough for the time being. Of course silence had never appealed much to the effervescent girl and so soon enough she was saying curiously: "Do you miss it?"

"The Dark Kingdom?" It surprised her slightly, that he was utterly unsurprised by the question. "No. Not really."

"They're still looking for you, you know."

That caught his attention; whipping his head around so quickly it made Usagi dizzy to look at him, he said sharply: "What?"

"That guy. Kunzite. He said to us that other night…he asked what we'd done to you. We didn't tell him. Not even I was that dumb." She laughed at herself, but her eyes were still troubled. "But he thought we must have hurt you or something."

"I suppose the _or something_'s true enough," he muttered, before strengthening his voice to ask in a distinctly odd voice: "Why didn't you tell me?"

It was Usagi's turn to shrug, though she did speak to expand upon the idea. "The others thought we shouldn't. I guess they thought you might run off if you thought they were still looking for you." Usagi gave him a small smile as she added: "I didn't think you would, though. We promised to protect you. And we will!"

Zoisite found himself staring at the floor himself, as if he'd never known before what a good friend it could be when your eyes wouldn't let you look anywhere else. "I believe you."

"Good. Because I never lie." Swallowing, she then managed to find courage enough to add: "And now I've told you this…you hurt Mamoru-san, and we'll get you."

"Excuse me?" he asked, startled as he met her blue eyes squarely with his own.

"I think you must have hurt him once." Kicking a heel back so that it began a rhythmic tap against the wall at her back, Usagi pursed her small rosebud lips. "I think that…if he's the prince, right, looking for the princess…if we all really did live once, on the moon…you knew him. And you hurt him. I won't let you do it again."

Zoisite was trying not to smirk, which both embarrassed and annoyed Usagi. "Got a crush on him, do you?"

"No!"

"Hmm."

Blushing as she looked away from him again – _why did he have to hmm like that, as if I was just being a silly little girl!_ – she sought a subject change and quickly leapt on the first decent idea that sprang to mind. "…did you have a girlfriend? Back in the Dark Kingdom?"

"Oh, and who'd be my girlfriend? A youma?" Rolling his eyes, Zoisite gave Usagi a deeply sceptical look. "Good grief. Those things make the elephant man look like the world's most eligible bachelor."

"Yeah. I guess." Laughing rather abruptly, Usagi managed to burble out through her giggles: "I suppose going out with a girl with big claws for arms would make people look at you funny."

"Bet we'd be the first to get served in the restaurant if she waved a waiter down with those though," Zoisite returned seriously. "Talk about wanting to get someone out of the place as soon as possible."

This comment meant that as Mamoru stepped off the list with two bags of groceries he came across the rather bizarre scene of Zoisite and Usagi doubled over in the hallway outside his apartment, laughing themselves sick.

"What's going on?" he asked suspiciously; though Zoisite and Usagi had never exactly fallen out over anything since the healing, he had always had the impression from Zoisite that the former shitennou was far from fond of the blonde senshi.

"She's cutting class and I'm enjoying her sparkling company while she does. Problem?" Zoisite answered for them both, Usagi still laughing so hard tears were all but streaming from her eyes.

Rolling his eyes at the display, Mamoru passed them both and walked into his apartment, though not without patting her lightly on the head as he did so. "Hey, Usagi-san."

"Hi, Mamoru-san," she choked out as she tried to gain some measure of sobriety; still there was a distinct lightness in her step as she then proceeded to trailed him inside. "I'm sorry for coming over uninvited."

"Don't be. It's nice to see your face." With his back to her he managed to miss the blush that crossed her pretty face, though it was hard to tell it apart from the flush already there from the prolonged laughing fit. "Are you and Zoisite really getting along okay?"

"Yeah. He's pretty cool."

"More fun than you, anyway," Zoisite added as his two cents, coming into the kitchen to join Usagi and Mamoru.

That particular comment of course only earned a snort from Mamoru, already well-used to Zoisite's brand of "friendly" banter. "So who wants some…oh."

Usagi looked up from where she had already dug with gusto into the bag of odango; she did manage the grace to at least look a little shamed. "Were these not for me?"

After snacks had been had – snack time mostly involving Zoisite and Mamoru watching in absolute amazement the sight of Usagi having herself a decent feed – Mamoru announced that it was indeed time to find the last carrier. With little protest, Zoisite dug out the nijizuishou. It took several minutes to wrest it from Usagi – who had never seen it before and like a magpie couldn't resist a pretty shiny thing – but once he had it in hand, the image of the carrier was bare moments away.

"Third time unlucky, I guess," Mamoru breathed out slowly as he looked at the little girl in the heavy coat. "Never met that girl."

Usagi's face – originally rather cheerful as she had oohed over the shirozuishou – had since fallen. "Me, either."

Zoisite's troubled gaze seemed fixated on something rather different to the girl's identity. "I'm not so sure it's her," he murmured slowly as he voiced his thoughts aloud.

"What, you've broken the shirozuishou already?"

"Endymion-sama, I'm not afraid to tell you that you're a jerk, all right?" Huffily he let the image fade, setting the crystal aside as he leaned back into the couch and crossed his arms. "I think it's the cat."

"…is that even possible?" Mamoru couldn't help but show deep scepticism at the very idea of a _cat_ holding a nijizuishou.

"The girl's not fully in frame – she's barely even in focus, for crying out loud. It's the cat."

"Well, if you want to play animal catcher, be my guest."

"Oh, no way. You hold it down and I'll zap it, that's the deal, highness."

"And how are we even supposed to find that cat?"

"Ask _your_ cat?"

"She's got a name, you know."

"I know that." Stiffly, Zoisite then admitted rather grudgingly with his chin held high: "I just don't like cats."

Usagi had been rather bemusedly watching the argument play out; it wasn't until that point that she had caught up with the rapid-fire banter to add in her own two cents. There was an ease to the interplay that felt as strange as it did familiar. She'd never have thought that Mamoru and Zoisite could behave like this together after being enemies but then…it felt wrong that they should ever behave any other way. "Why don't you like Luna?"

"I don't like small, smelly animals."

"She'd be offended to hear that," Mamoru advised, nudging Usagi to keep her quiet as she opened her mouth in outrage on behalf of her diminutive guardian. "Besides, I'm not even convinced that Luna would KNOW that many cats. She's not exactly your average feline."

Usagi grinned quite suddenly, looked down at her watch, "We should go ask her!"

"Where is she?" Zoisite asked as he looked down at his own watch, frowning as he saw it was later than he'd originally thought.

"I don't know, actually. But it doesn't matter. Let's call a meeting at Rei-chan's. Luna always seems to find out when we've got one of those…she's probably with Ami-chan or something anyway." With that said in an extremely decisive voice, she leapt to her slippered feet and pumped a hand in the air. "Let's go!" She did deflate somewhat when she saw the rather incredulous looks the two men were now giving her. "…what?"

"You've very decisive today," Zoisite said finally, apparently only just managing to keep a straight face. Mamoru, on the other hand, was just grinning widely.

Scowling, Usagi put her hands on her hips and returned haughtily: "Well, _you're_ the one who said I was the Moon Princess's leader. I have to try my best because of that, right?"

That wiped the smirk right off Mamoru's face. "What?"

Rolling his eyes to the ceiling, Zoisite said only: "Long story. Let's just go."

* * *

"So, who do you think Sailor V really is?" Jupiter asked as she kicked her feet in the air; she lay on her stomach on the floor of Rei's bedroom, watching Rei pick absently at her hakama while Ami tapped out seemingly random digits on her computer keypad.

"What do you mean, who she really is?" Rei asked, finding her voice from amongst her thoughts. "We're all just normal people. I don't think we could just _guess _who she is in civilian form."

"No, I mean…the whole princess thing. You really think it's possible she's the princess?"

"It would seem likely," Ami said, as usual working away at her computer. "I mean…she's powerful enough to feel safe on her own. That must say something."

Standing up in a single fluid, nervous movement, Rei began pacing her room with a deep line of tension marring her brow. "I think it says that she doesn't trust us."

"I'm sure she has her reasons." Ami's calm voice hoped to defuse Rei's nervous energy, the quiet girl acting ever the peacemaker.

"It still doesn't make much sense," Rei said quietly, now tapping one long finger against her chin as her pace sped up. "We're missing a senshi, right?"

"What?" Mako blinked, giving Ami and Rei both odd looks.

Chewing now on her lip, Rei continued: "Luna said there were five of us. Right?"

"Yes." Ami's near-eidetic memory was excellent for confirming all manner of facts, second hand or first.

"And the princess can't be a real senshi."

This Ami clearly did not agree with, as she near-instantly asked for a decent reason for the assumption. "Why not?"

"Because we exist to protect her, right?"

"I guess we do," Mako answered for them both.

"So…I don't know for sure, but looking around at who we are…it would make sense if we were missing Venus."

Sitting up straight now, flexing out the cramping muscles in her long legs, Mako frowned and repeated the last few words of Rei's latest statement. "Missing Venus?"

"Sailor Venus. Sailor V," Ami said thoughtfully, pausing in her work at the computer to stare off into space and let her brain tick over the possibility. "It matches."

"We don't know that, though."

"Of course we don't know – she won't tell us!" Rei returned smartly, her frustration evident as she sat down quite heavily on her futon. "For all we know, maybe she is the princess and the V…I don't know. V for Victory or something." Sighing she flopped down on the bed, all her energy apparently deserting her for the time being.

"She does wear a totally different fuku to us," Ami ventured carefully. "If she is the princess, she probably remembers more than we do about everything…maybe she's been more afraid of being captured by the enemies and so she's had to learn to protect herself."

"I know what you mean, Ami," Rei said quietly as she stared at the ceiling. "But why doesn't she want us to protect her now?"

There was really nothing to be said to that. It was Mako who finally sought to break the silence, looking at the clock across the room. "I wonder where Luna is. It's not like her to be late."

The laugh from Rei was oddly light, especially given the growing darkness of her mood. "I suppose we have Usagi to blame for the lateness of Mamoru-san and Zoisite."

"I heard that, Rei-chan!" In a true example of the _speak of the devil_ cliché, Usagi entered the room rather grumpily and promptly ditched her book-case on the floor.

"It's true, mind you," Mamoru pointed out as he followed her into the room.

"I'll second that," Zoisite volunteered, slipping off a heavy dark coat as he nodded a greeting to the girl who had looked up at the sound of his voice. "Hello, Ami-san."

The blush that heated Ami's face might have been involuntary, but it was pretty damned obvious even though she might have wished it otherwise. "Hi, Zoisite-san."

"What are we talking about? You all look so serious, with faces like that!" Usagi asked as she plopped down next to Mako and gave her a curious look.

"Yeah, you do," Mamoru added, folding himself down into a cross-legged stance far more elegantly than Usagi. "You know, I was going to bring odango over and I guess that might have cheered you up…but Usagi-chan ate them all before we even got out the door."

"Zoisite helped!"

"I hardly think my one compares to your eight," Zoisite countered dryly. "Seriously, Ami-san. What have you been talking about?"

"The princess."

"We need to find her. We know."

Rei snorted as she pushed herself into a sitting position. "You don't have any better ideas yet, do you?"

"Zoisite thinks I was the leader of her guard back in the Silver Millennium!" Usagi piped up handily, earning Zoisite a Look from Mamoru.

"…you haven't hit your head lately, have you?"

"Don't be too much of an idiot if you can help it, Endymion-sama. I was drawing logical conclusions."

"The best kind," Ami couldn't help but pipe up.

"Exactly. Thank you. I'm just saying this: she's Sailor _Moon_. You have a _Moon_ princess. Surely they're related."

"I've got to protect her."

Zoisite had to throw his hands up in the air at this, displaying total helplessness at Usagi's current fixation. "…you tell her one thing, and she's like a stuck record." He then successfully ignored Usagi as she promptly stuck her tongue out at him for that comment.

Mako was scratching her head now, trying to figure out exactly what was being implied. "So we all lived in the Silver Millennium then?"

The entire conversation was promptly shot to pieces when Luna then decided to streak in; everyone stared at the state of the little cat, completely aghast. "Luna! What _happened_?" Usagi gasped, reaching over to pick up the puffing animal who looked like she'd just been in the wars and then some.

Once her breath was caught back, she proceeded to describe the whole sorry tale – like some completely bizarre fairytale, it involved the heroine of the piece first meeting trouble, and then being saved by her prince. Luna looked distinctly pained to remember the gang of cats challenging the "strange one," with the ensuing chase ending in a stand-off in a corner…until the appearance of her saviour.

Usagi was grinning like an idiot at the conclusion of the story; what she burst out with was obviously something she'd been waiting to say since the character of Red Battler had first entered the story. "Luna's got a boyfriend!" she squealed excitedly.

"Oh, Usagi-chan," Luna groaned, burying her face in her paws.

"You do! Oh, I think it's so cute!"

As the poor moon-cat's furry face began to take on a distinctly harassed look, Zoisite broke in. "Luna?"

"Yes, Zoisite?" she asked, seemingly glad for the distraction.

"You said it was a big fat cat, right?"

"Yes," she affirmed, giving him a look that said explicitly that she regarded that fact as hardly the most pertinent of the story.

"Don't tell me it was a big fat _blue_ cat."

Luna was by now beginning to look rather suspicious about Zoisite's fixation on her hero. "It was."

Finally sitting down at last, Zoisite all but tumbled to the floor in what seemed to be weary astonishment. "Now _that'_s what I call the power of coincidence."

Mamoru, who could clearly see what Zoisite was getting at, shook his head as if things like this no longer surprised him in the slightest. "Things like that just seem to happen around us."

"I'd noticed," he returned dryly before noting the looks of confusion on the faces of all those who hadn't seen the shirozuishou's latest image. "That cat just so happens to be the next carrier."

"…you're joking," Luna said in a tone of utter disbelief.

"I rarely joke. I smart ass people, but I don't joke."

Usagi grinned at that. "You joke with me!"

Waving a hand at her, Zoisite didn't even look at Usagi as he commanded: "Quiet."

"Hey! I'm the leader here!"

"Yes, yes. Good for you." Firmly ignoring the wail on Usagi's lips that was set to explode upon the scene, he looked to the cat again. "Luna. Do you think you could find that cat again?"

This made her look rather put upon the spot indeed. "I…I don't know," she admitted reluctantly.

"I could!"

Zoisite gave the pretty little blonde a look that clearly said he was thinking of throwing something belonging to Rei at her head. "Usagi-san, you're taking this leader thing TOO seriously now."

"But if we know who the carrier is, surely Jadeite and Kunzite do! We've got to do something!"

Rei obviously had to agree with Zoisite there, suggesting: "Like wander around aimlessly for three weeks looking for a cat in a city of _millions_ of cats?"

"Actually." Zoisite drew everyone's attention with his sudden air of authority. "I have an idea."

It was the rather shifty glint in his eye that said to Mamoru to be rather cautious of this little idea. "Like what?"

Turning to Luna, he asked: "You said it used a fishbone like Endymion-sama uses roses, right?"

"…yes..?"

"…well, given that Endymion-sama has a sixth sense about you girls and danger…"

* * *

"This is NOT FUNNY!" Luna yowled; it was patently obvious why she might feel this way as she ran across the grounds of the park with the gang of cats in hot pursuit.

Watching the melee from a safe distance up upon one of the over-bridges of the extensive greenbelt, Zoisite had to shrug at the moon-cat's distress. "I don't know. I think it's really funny."

"You would," Mamoru said without irony, running his hand through his hair. "But funny or not, I don't think your marvellous little plan is actually working."

Shrugging again, Zoisite watched Luna pull a horrendous one-eighty and circle back for what was the tenth time at Ami's last count. "Give it time."

"I'm sure Luna's willing to do that, yes."

Seeing the dirty look Zoisite gave Mamoru and sensing an impending argument, Rei decided to point out something she'd already tried to explain several times before. "You're forgetting the cat's not Tuxedo Kamen, anyway. Why would he be able to sense when Luna's in trouble?"

"It's got a nijizuishou, Rei-san. It's not a normal cat."

"He's still a _cat_!"

Zoisite snorted. "So tell that to your _talking_ cat."

"At least she can talk!"

"Guys. Shut up." That was Mako, leaning over the railing to see that although Luna was cornered again, the cat seeking to challenge the gang was not exactly what she had been picturing Red Battler to be.

"…is it me, or is that cat too skinny to be the carrier?" Rei asked, squinting as she took in the scene below the bridge.

"Sure moves like the wind, though. He's got style!" Mako said admiringly, watching the white cat run off a challenger and stare down the entire rest of the group.

Usagi nodded firmly, jumped off the railing where she'd been hanging onto it. "Let's get down there and finish saving the day!"

* * *

"Luna? Luna!"

Blearily Luna looked up at the voice of her latest hero; what bothered her intensely in that moment was that although her stressed and tired mind wouldn't allow her to think of it right away, the voice was so familiar to her. She sought it desperately, her fuzzy mind clearly so abruptly that she all but shouted the old name. "Art…_Artemis_!"

"You're all right." Relieved, the little white cat sat back on his haunches and sighed. "What did you think you were doing, taking them on again? I mean, I would've helped you last time too, if not for--"

"ARTEMIS!" Leaping up, not knowing whether to be happy or angry, the moon-cat simply settled for something somewhere in between as she really took in the sudden appearance of her former comrade. "I forgot…how could I…where have you _been_?"

"Fulfilling my mission, the same as you." The words were slightly stiff, as if the white cat was taking deep offence at the implication he'd been on a prolonged holiday in Tahiti. "Where's your charge, anyway?"

"She's…oh. Oh dear."

Artemis frowned at the rather alarmed look that overtook Luna's earlier expression of annoyance. "What…oh."

Luna winced as Artemis turned around fully and gave the much larger of the two male cats a rather weak feline smile; as annoyed as she currently was with the white cat, she wasn't particularly inclined to throw him to the mercy of her not-so-secret admirer. "I don't think he liked you saving me."

"Oh, boy."

"Hey! Cat!" Usagi came running over with a shout as she took in the scene; once she got there, however, she simply stared at the three cats in amazement. Luna now stood between the small white cat and the rather oversized blue one. "Whoa! So now Luna's got _two _boyfriends?" she blinked. "And she says I'M boy-crazy!"

Luna looked like she now had a headache that was on the verge of exploding her poor small head. "Usagi-chan…"

"I'm not her boyfriend," Artemis immediately refuted though something in the tone of his voice suggested that had he been human, there would have been high colour in his cheeks. "I'm her colleague."

Usagi, by now with Ami, Rei and Mako at her side, looked completely blown away by Artemis's words. "Colleague – you can talk?"

"Why so surprised?" came the lazy comment from just behind Usagi, earning rolled eyes yet again from Mamoru. "It's not like you haven't seen the talking cat bit before."

"Shut up, Zoisite."

Ignoring the command of his prince and pushing forward, Zoisite narrowed his eyes at the small white cat and then said abruptly: "You're Artemis, right?"

"You're Zoisite." At the small nod, Artemis gave him a deeply appraising look that stated clearly that trust was definitely not going to be easily won in this relationship. "So you really have turned again."

Zoisite's words were as stiff as arthritic joints, flat as an ironed prairie. "Would appear so."

"But you don't remember much, do you?" the cat asked, the oddly smug undertone causing a tic to begin in Zoisite's left eye.

"Do you?" he asked near-pleasantly, but it was obvious to all who had known Zoisite in this form for any length of time that he was growing irritable. That wasn't the entire reason why Mamoru chose then to break in, but it was certainly a contributing factor.

"What are you doing here and why are you here now?" the dark-haired man asked, unconsciously slipping into a tone that commanded immediate respect and answer. "If you're Luna's…colleague, why haven't we seen you before now?"

"Tuxedo Kamen." Artemis bowed his head reverently, and then straightened up with his head held proudly high. "Luna had her mission, and I had mine."

"So why now?" Mako asked, the words echoed by Rei.

"Luna was in trouble." Saying that reminded Artemis of the presence of Red Battler; he looked to the irritated cat and winced. "I wish he'd stop staring at me like that. It's creeping me out."

Zoisite took out the shirozuishou with a shrug, flipped it easily in one elegant hand. "Guess seeing as we're all here…"

Artemis did the feline equivalent of raising an eyebrow as he calculated Zoisite's meaning and nodded at the largest cat of the trio. "He's the carrier?"

"Sure is. Someone grab it."

Usagi promptly leaned over to gather up and squish happily the rather startled looking cat; it didn't really have much opportunity to mewl in protest given how fast Zoisite then moved. Once again, those who protected him had to admit that Zoisite was proving an efficient ally. The nijizuishou was out in what appeared to be a flash. The only problem – and naturally there was a problem – was that the angle Usagi held the cat on seemed to be all wrong. The nijizuishou promptly flew off out into the sky, disappearing into a distant copse of trees.

"What the—"

Usagi leaped to her feet, quickly dumping the heavy bundle of snoring cat on a rather unprepared Rei. "I'll get it!" she called as she then bounced off out of sight, ignoring Rei's loud complaints about fat cats and sudden weights.

Luna sighed as she rubbed at her aching head, and asked of the group in general: "You think we should let her run off alone like that?"

Pocketing the shirozuishou, Zoisite gave Mamoru a thoughtful sideways look. "She's a big girl now. Though I am surprised she's not a bigger girl with all the sweets she eats."

"You're not telling me anything I didn't know before," Luna muttered, but in all affection; the half-smile faded as she looked down at the slumbering cat with a sigh. "The poor thing."

Artemis decided to take offence at this comment. "I don't hear you saying _you poor thing _to me! And I took that blow for you!"

Luna tossed her head in the haughty way only females of any species can pull off well. "Yeah, but I'm angry at you."

"For what?" he asked, quite incredulous. "For following orders?"

"Whose orders?" she challenged immediately.

The look Artemis gave her then was downright astonished. "Queen Serenity's orders, of course."

"The Queen." These words had a magic effect on Luna; energised by their mere sound she all but pounced on her wayward comrade. "Do you know who the princess is?"

"Of course I do," he returned, stepping back elegantly so he was still out of her pouncing range. "Sailor Moon is your charge. The Moon Princess is mine."

This interesting little development begged for the input of the entire group, but this was halted by a rather alarmed scream from the direction in which Usagi had earlier disappeared. "Oh, great," Mamoru muttered, flexing his hand tiredly. "I knew we shouldn't have let her go alone." With two nods, he separated them into two groups. "Luna. Artemis. Zoisite. Stay here. Girls? Transform and come with me."

"Yes, sir!" Mako said with a mock salute and a rather silly grin. "Anything for a fight, sir!"

"You really enjoy this too much sometimes, Makoto-san."

"Sure do!" She grinned, her henshin wand already in hand. In their senshi forms the girls then trailed Tuxedo Kamen, leaving Luna and Zoisite to fight it out for knowledge of the past from Artemis. Given Luna's memory of the cat and Zoisite's habit of pestering until he got what he wanted, they were sure that at least one of them was going to get some answers.

Usagi struggled against the tight grip about her waist, trying to raise her hands to beat at the strong arms that bear-hugged her from behind. Given that those arms successfully pinned her own against her sides, she was not getting very far in her task at all. "Let me GO!"

"Tsukino-san. Honestly," Jadeite all but soothed, tightening his grip just enough to make her gasp. She did not release her grip on the cat's nijizuishou, however. "It's better if you let me have the nijizuishou for now."

"How's that?" she snapped back; she could be a bit of a flake from time to time, but not even Tsukino Usagi was going to buy a statement as wild as all that.

"Good question. Maybe I should let you have it after all."

Usagi was craning her head around to tell Jadeite that he was nuts when a strong voice broke into the clearing amongst the tall trees. "Back off, creep!"

"Haven't I heard that already?" Jadeite muttered, but before Usagi could tell him to shut up about their lack of new challenging material he let her go. Startled, she stood stock still, considering her options until he shoved her hard in the back and left her sprawled in the dirt.

Mars pursed her lips, and then scowled direly at the blonde shitennou. "Usagi! Transform!"

"Ye-yes!" Picking herself up rather painfully from the ground, she twisted her hands in the familiar pattern and shouted: "Moon Prism Power…make-up!"

Jadeite seemed totally uninterested in the metamorphosis taking place only mere feet from him. His entire attention was now focused on the tall form watching him just as carefully as he did him. "Tuxedo Kamen," he said slowly, the words sounding oddly wrong on his tongue. It was as if Jadeite thought the name entirely wrong for the individual that they described. "We meet again."

"I'm ready for you this time," Tuxedo Kamen returned evenly, holding his cane far more properly than he had during the last duel; he didn't understand it, but it was feeling…more _right_ now, to hold it as if it were a sword. The weight of it was all wrong, but something was telling him that he knew how to handle such an object.

Jadeite, however, appeared to disagree totally with his growing assurance in his prowess as a swordsman. "Not like this, you're not."

Mars could not help but snort at the odds presented to them. "You can't beat all of us, you know," she pointed out, not without a degree of relish.

"Possibly not. I will try, however." Easily he pulled the shining kodachi from the æther, holding them at the ready again. "Wish to press your luck, girls?"

Firming up her trembling hands Sailor Moon pulled the moon-stick from her own wand-space and snapped it into a pose, holding it before her determined face. "I'll heal you."

Jadeite raised an eyebrow, looking somewhere between amusement and satisfaction. "Is it really so easy, Sailor Moon?"

"I guess not," she admitted, but the blue determination in her eyes did not falter. "But I'll try anyway. I'm the leader. I have to."

"You surely do." Appearing to be more in the mood for conversation than battle right now, Jadeite lowered the glowing blades. "But do you know what being the leader really means, Sailor Moon?"

The query in his voice made her falter a moment, but she found herself quickly enough. "Being there for your friends. Making sure they're safe and happy."

"What if I told you it would make them safer and happier if you gave me the nijizuishou?"

She had to laugh at this, the sound light and disbelieving. "I wouldn't believe you!"

"You should."

Tuxedo Kamen stepped forward, standing just feet in front of Sailor Moon. He held the cane as a two handed sword and gave the shitennou the hard word. "Just fight, Jadeite."

The swords blinked out, Jadeite raising his hands in apparent annoyance. "No. I don't like these odds after all."

"Then I'll even them, shall I?" A sudden dark flash of energy threw Mercury, Mars and Jupiter to the ground; out of the gleaming darkness coagulating in the shadows of the trees walked a man of pale light. "Two against two. Better, Jadeite?"

…_is it just me, or does Jadeite not seem pleased to see this guy_? That startled thought pushed aside, Mamoru then realised that he was fairly sure he wasn't happy to see him again, himself.

"Yes," the blonde muttered, and then drew his kodachi again. "What would you have me do, Kunzite?"

"I'll deal with the girl and the crystal. You do something with Kamen."

Sailor Moon held the nijizuishou close to her chest, her eyes growing progressively more wild as the man approached. "Tuxedo Kamen-sama!" she squealed, tossing the nijizuishou to him. She wasn't entirely sure what she was thinking, but the key seemed to be that the white-haired man wanted the nijizuishou…and passing on the crystal would get him out of her hair for at least a brief moment.

Tuxedo Kamen snatched the nijizuishou from the air, managing to catch it despite the girl's rather inelegant (and rather _inaccurate_) throw. "Oh, thanks, Sailor Moon," he muttered, holding it tightly in his hand all the same. He had to admit that maybe she hadn't been such an idiot however, because he could see already she was readying her moon-stick.

Still, that was small comfort when he felt the full weight of cold blue eyes upon him. They had barely seen Kunzite that night with Reika, but the memory of his cold presence paled in comparison to his real self.

"Tuxedo Kamen." The voice was a deep roll of thunder, reverberating not only through the air but in his mind itself, making him wince harshly. "Accept you are not my match and give me the nijizuishou."

Focusing entirely on the tall pale man, Tuxedo Kamen accepted that that could be true but that he wanted evidence all the same. "I don't accept garbage like that."

With his attention so caught up in Kunzite, he didn't realise what Sailor Moon was doing until it all went hideously wrong. "Moon…Healing…eek!" The moon-stick clattered to the ground as Jadeite teleported halfway across the clearing and caught her from behind in a move that brought on rather a lot of déjà vu for both parties.

"Quiet."

"Lemme go!" she wailed, the glow of the wand fading fast as she felt his sorcery try to drain the energy from her flailing form. "This isn't fair!"

"I know. Bear with me a bit."

The matter-of-fact tone – the words themselves completely unexpected – meant she couldn't help but gasp: "What?"

While Sailor Moon and Jadeite continued their back and forth struggle, Kunzite raised one strong hand and opened the palm; Sailor Moon gasped at the light that emitted from it, dark and malevolent. "Tuxedo Kamen-sama!"

The blow never left his grip, but it was hard to say if it had ever been intended to land in the first place. Kunzite seemed totally unsurprised by the crescent beam that had dissipated the energy and left Tuxedo Kamen staring unharmed at him.

"Why don't you fight someone with enough memory to be on a par with you, Kunzite?" came the strong voice of a female from seemingly all around them.

Kunzite was unmoved by the disorientation that bit at the minds of all the others at the surround-sound voice. "Ah. Sailor V."

The senshi in question stepped onto the scene from the shadowed wings, seeming to shine with a light all of her own in the dim clearing. What drew the most attention of them most was not her beauty and power, but rather the gleaming broadsword in her own hands. "You can call me princess, thank you." The mask fluttered to the ground, the face beneath it young and determined. "Want to go a round?" she said as she came to stand beside Tuxedo Kamen, blade glinting in the light of her form. "You think you can beat us both?"

Kunzite laughed then, the sound as ugly as it was beautiful. "Haven't we done it before?"

He unsheathed the sword from the air itself, as Jadeite had done before him; it was a one-sided katana, the hilt silver and blue. He raised it and drew it down sharply; no one was more surprised than Kunzite himself when _two_ swords stopped its downward arc.

"You're missing someone from that _last time_. Kunzite-sama."

Kunzite snapped his sword back, dropping it to his side in one easy movement. Despite the control of his body his eyes could not help but belie his utter disbelief. "_Zoisite_?"

"Even when you think you've calculated for all the contingencies, another one always comes up," he returned in a quiet, determined voice that only served to cause all surprise to flee from Kunzite's pale eyes. The coldness was back, eyes now flat and unreadable; though his heart was screaming in his chest like a kitten caught aflame, Zoisite steeled his voice and gritted out: "You want Endymion-sama _or_ the princess, Kunzite-sama? You go through me first."

Jadeite whistled from his vantage point with Sailor Moon. "Queen Beryl _will_ be interested in this."

The only word that he spoke to Zoisite was as cold as ice and far sharper than any blade could be. "Traitor."

Swallowing hard at the detachment of the man he loved too much, Zoisite tightened his grip on the sword and met the man's eyes fully. The presence of the princess on one side and the prince on the other strengthened his resolve, made him think that this was what he was to do after all.

_I thought I existed only for you, Kunzite-sama. Perhaps…I was wrong. Do I exist only for them…?_

The word "traitor" still echoing in his mind, he said thickly: "Several times over, I suspect."

Dismissing the defector entirely, Kunzite sheathed the sword in nothingness and turned to the prince and princess. "We'll leave this for now. This is not over." Having said that, he flicked a hand at his comrade. "Come, Jadeite."

"In a second." Once again Jadeite released Sailor Moon with a suddenness that left her collapsed on the ground; before anyone reacted he shot a beam of light towards the group. Sailor V and Zoisite both leapt at Kamen and immediately sent him sprawling under their combined weight. While this certainly saved him from the brunt of Jadeite's unexpected attack, it knocked more than just the wind from him. The nijizuishou that fell from Kamen's grasp neatly skipped across the ground and straight into the gloved hand of Jadeite.

With a smirk Jadeite looked directly at Sailor Moon, the only one who could see him at this particular angle. "Sorry," he mouthed with a wink, and then he was gone as Kunzite echoed his exit.

"Shit!" Sailor V was on her feet again in one swift movement, frustration colouring her face and her words very red and furious. With her hands unconsciously raising the sword again, she all but spat out: "_Shit_! I can't believe that—"

Another voice broke into the fray, admonishment lacing every word with reproach. "Princess. Calm down."

"Artemis." Appearing somewhat chastised, Sailor V lowered her sword and rubbed her eyes with gloved fingers. The two cats stepped closer as she visibly struggled to settle herself; one was white and calm, the other black and totally amazed. "I'm sorry. I just…I hate to lose!"

"We all do," Artemis pointed out pragmatically. "But then we have plenty of time to win yet."

"Princess."

"Yes." Sailor V turned her lovely face to Tuxedo Kamen as he spoke her title, though she did not smile. The look that passed between them was held entirely too long; Sailor Moon found her heart was beginning to beat faster, each released contraction painful against too-tight ribs.

_This is the way it's supposed to be…right? The prince, the princess…so why does my heart feel so bad? This is the way it's supposed to be…_

Her voice shaking, she tried to step closer, failed. "Sailor V, you're…the princess?"

V looked at her; Sailor Moon was sure she'd imagined it, but for a second there had been a flicker of sorrow…pity…_apology_ in those cornflower eyes. "Yes."

Her hands tangled themselves together before her hips, and she found herself staring at the ground again. A shimmer there caught her attention; it was as if the abandoned moon-stick was winking at her, the gesture as peculiarly conspiratorial as had been Jadeite's own wink. Pushing that thought aside – _more important things to consider just now_ — she silently picked it up. Coming before the princess, Sailor Moon bowed low and proffered it to her. "Here," she said in an unsteady voice, her lowered sideways gaze managing to catch the sight of Tuxedo Kamen still staring at the blonde princess in absolute astonishment. Finally pulled her eyes away and focused entirely on the beautiful girl as she raised her eyes and offered her a wavering smile along with the item. "I think this is yours."

Mars, slowly waking up as the influence of the dark magics wore off, looked up blearily to see Sailor Moon holding out the moon-stick to an unfamiliar girl. "What are you doing?" she gasped, sitting up straighter despite the wave of nausea that washed over her and threatened to sweep her to sea entirely.

"She's the princess. This is hers."

The look on her face was unreadable but something about it was still kind. Perhaps it was the regality inherent in the way she held up a hand, the careful way in which she spoke to the trembling girl. "I want you to keep it for now, Sailor Moon."

"What?"

The smile that crossed her face then was brilliant, dazzling; Tuxedo Kamen was quite unable to look away from the shining figure that she presented. "I think you understand what it is. I want you to protect it for me."

"But…it's yours," Sailor Moon said uncertainly, still holding it out to her.

"You need it more than me now."

Mercury and Jupiter were stirring now. The blue-haired senshi was the first to look up. "Princess?"

"Mercury. Mars. Jupiter. Sailor Moon. I wish we could have met sooner, but then…even now is slightly too soon." A look down at her sword seemed to remind her of something. "I must go," she said shortly, sheathing the sword with a saya that appeared to come from nowhere. "We'll meet again soon."

Tuxedo Kamen's voice held a tint of desperation as he voiced what they all were thinking a split second before anyone else had the chance. "When?"

"Tonight," she said; something about her eyes was off as she looked at the man who would be her prince. "At the shrine."

"You know about the shrine?" Sailor Moon asked.

"I know about a lot, Usagi-san. I'll explain it all tonight. Artemis?"

He nodded. "Princess." The two figures then did an about face, leaving without giving anyone the opportunity to ask more questions.

Mercury, still unable to actually stand, gave the others a bewildered look as she leaned on the equally-bewildered Jupiter for support. "What's going on?"

"She's the princess." Tuxedo Kamen's shock was palpable; he had searched long for this girl, for what seemed to be a lifetime. To finally have her before him…gone now, perhaps, but with a promise of answers to come only that night…his mind and heart were having trouble understanding that the search was really over, that she was at last within his ken.

"And she's no damsel in distress, either," Zoisite noted wryly, unable to keep his mouth shut as per usual. His words did serve to make Sailor Moon suddenly realise he was there, because her hand shot to her mouth and she gasped in horror.

"Zoisite! They know you're with us! And they…they might think you're on our side!"

"I doubt there's any doubt on that front, Sailor Moon," he pointed out as he hefted his scimitar, running one finger along the blade lightly. The action drew blood from the pale flesh, but deep in thought he seemed not to notice any pain. "That sword she carried…it's the holy sword."

"Holy sword?" Mars echoed, no understanding or memory in her words.

"I don't remember," Zoisite said quietly, unable to say anymore than that.

Luna's voice was just as quiet, but much stronger in its conviction than Zoisite's had been. "I think I might. Maybe."

"There's always tonight," Mamoru said finally, his transformed form already scattered to the winds. "I think I've…I've had enough for now. Let's just…let it lie for a little while, go to Rei-san's and relax until she shows up." A glance at his watch had his brow furrowing as he used the little normalities of life to bring himself back down to earth. "It's nearly six now. Who knows how long she'll wait before coming back?"

Usagi, still holding the moon-stick despite the loss of Sailor Moon, nodded first at the stick, and then looked up with too-bright eyes. "Right! Is there food at your house, Rei-chan?"

"I suppose I can let you clean out the refrigerator," she muttered, long-suffering but still rather kind. "It's been a long day," she added softly, more to herself than anybody else.

And even though no-one save himself heard it, Zoisite couldn't help but add just as softly: "And it isn't even over yet."

**END CHAPTER SEVEN**


	8. What Do I Have To Do?

**Eight: What Do I Have To Do?**

_In which Zoisite bares his heart to Ami and retracts it again/Jadeite and Kunzite have a tête-à-tête with no better outcome/Rei and Mako find common ground/Beryl ponders her options Usagi looks for the real Mamoru and likes what she sees far too much/the Princess and her Guardian turn over two pages at once and/it's a lovely night for kidnapping the moon._

"Are you okay?"

Zoisite looked up at Ami, the frown on his face deeply etched. "What are you doing out here?"

Biting her lower lip, Ami bowed her head. "I'll go back inside, if you don't want the company."

Ami had turned and walked some feet along the veranda back towards Rei's room when Zoisite expelled a frustrated sigh and called to her. "Look, I didn't mean it. You can stay out here if you want."

Ami half-turned back in his direction, her expression troubled and embarrassed. "You look like you'd rather be alone."

Scuffing his toes in the dirt – a movement that was scarcely kind to his expensive leather shoes – Zoisite muttered in a voice just loud enough for Ami to hear: "I would, but then I've never really known what's best for me."

"I don't know what's best for you, either."

"You probably have a healthier perspective than a washed up evil lackey, Ami-san." The laugh with which he augmented these words made her wince, leading him to add wryly: "Translated loosely, that means _stay_, okay?"

She came closer to him, but she stood some feet away with her arms crossed protectively over her chest. "Sometimes it really is like you're speaking another language, you know."

Though he half-heartedly patted the space next to himself, Ami didn't step any closer. "I feel like I'm living in the totally wrong place sometimes, too."

"Are you cold?" she asked as she stepped forward tentatively; she wasn't sure at this juncture what would annoy him more…not doing as he said and sitting next to him, or invading his privacy by doing precisely that. She distracted herself from thinking about it when she explained her question. "You're shivering."

"I'm okay," Zoisite said, seeming to be wary of her concern. Wrapping his light coat about himself, he remarked rather gamely: "It's nice to be wearing my own clothes, anyway."

"I noticed you looked a little different. Did you go back to your apartment?"

"I certainly wasn't going to borrow Endymion-sama's clothes forever. One fashion faux-pas is forgivable enough…but to keep repeating it is ridiculous."

Not wanting to be drawn into a conversation about fashion, Ami slowly sat down some distance from the slender man and rearranged her own plain skirt. "It must have been nice, to go back to your apartment. You've been wanting to for ages, after all."

"For a while, yes."

The lack of pleasure in his voice had her frowning over at him. "It wasn't what you expected?"

"It was empty."

"What do you mean?" Ami asked, this time deeply startled by the bitterness of his voice.

"Everything there was different," and he was close it seemed to slapping the wood at his side in deep frustration. "I remember it, of course. I remember everything that happened in my life here on Earth...family. Friends. School and work and my hobbies. The piano…I played the piano, once. Did you know that? Did you find that on your little computer? But I couldn't even bear to touch it. There were no pianos in the Dark Kingdom."

It was hard to decide what bothered her more – Zoisite's lack of emotion about his real life, or the fact that all she wanted to do was make it better for him. "Doesn't that make you want it all back?"

"No. It's not real to me at all. It's like…I watched a television show of somebody else's life and now I'm just wandering the set of it once all the actors and crew have gone home. Everything I see in these places are just sudden moments from someone else's story."

The only words she could find were as lame as an old over-worked donkey, but she found herself near-whispering them anyway. "I'm sorry."

"I can't decide what's worse…not being able to remember anything at all, or being able to remember everything and have it all mean nothing."

Finding her voice gave her strength as she located words that she thought might help. "It means something. It means you have something to work for, like we do. An ordinary life."

The peculiar expression on his face had Ami's heart beating a little faster, her voice threatening to fail her all over again. "People like you will never be ordinary, Ami-san."

The only reply that she could think of strangely was the one that made the most sense to her logical mind. "The same applies to you, too."

This time it seemed to be his turn to be uncomfortable; he was looking away and up at the clouded sky when he spoke again. "Shouldn't you be inside, with Endymion-sama and Usagi-san?"

"I was concerned about you."

He cast a careful look, his voice carefully moderated to hold no discernible emotion. "Why, exactly?"

"You don't look very well."

That brought only silence from him as he looked at her with empty eyes. It drove Ami to look swiftly for something else to start a conversation with; she couldn't stand how far away he seemed even while sitting so close to her.

"What do you think she's going to tell us?"

"The princess?" Zoisite asked, and even though he looked away from her his attention seemed to have come down to earth. "Something about saving the world, I suppose."

"You don't sound too excited."

There was thin amusement in the smile he spared her then. "Well, after being on the side that wanted to destroy it, it's all a little bit peculiar to think about."

"Seeing Kunzite really upset you, didn't it?"

All his returning good humour disappeared immediately with that particular comment. "Anybody but you, Ami-san. Anybody but you."

"What?"

"If anybody but you had said that, I probably would have taken their head off for asking stupid questions. But you don't ask stupid questions. You're far too smart for that."

Though she hated to admit it, she really didn't have a clue what Zoisite was actually getting at. Therefore she simply forged ahead with what seemed like the best comment for the situation. "You needn't be afraid of him. I know he's powerful, but we'll protect you. You're one of us now, and we'll do everything to help you. And him, if we can."

"Help him?"

Ami offered the most sensible thing that occurred to her. "Maybe we can heal him the way we healed you."

Zoisite's smile was twisted. "He's too strong for that. He'd never accept healing from any of you…most especially the princess."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"You don't have to be afraid!"

"I'll always be afraid of what he is capable of doing to me."

"Why are you more afraid of him than Queen Beryl?" Ami asked. The sharp look Zoisite gave her then had her hurriedly adding: "I can just…it's…I don't know. I just think you are."

"I am." The admission seemed to cost him less than she had thought it would. "He knows how to hurt me more than she does. She'll have him hurt me because of that. Possibly it would be punishment for him as well, for not training me enough to prevent this from ever having happened in the first place."

The bleakness of his words didn't gel with Ami's knowledge of Zoisite's association with the tall, cold man. That was the reason why she asked the question that she did. "Because he was your teacher?"

"Because he was my lover." In silence he then watched for her reaction with no discernible expression of his own. "What are you thinking?" he asked finally, voice still as unreadable as an ink-inscribed book washed in saltwater.

"…lover?" Ami was quiet a moment, blue eyes turned to the sky. The moonlight oddly didn't hurt, for all its brightness. "For how long?"

Zoisite's features shifted in almost-concealed surprise. "That's not the first thing I thought you would ask."

Turning her eyes to him at last, she told him carefully: "Maybe I'm not the girl you thought I was."

He seemed unable to meet her eyes for long, turning away from the hooded gaze that he could not quite interpret. "I don't know how long. Time…is strange in that place. We slept for so long, and then we woke…and things were just…the way they were. I was always at his side, from very early on. He realised I would be useful in his quest for control and power over much of Beryl's armies and territories." He shrugged then like it didn't matter, but Ami could sense pain at the thought of the reasons why he was useful to the cold man. "Better to have a fellow shitennou on your side than at your throat, especially when said shitennou is a vindictive, deceptive lying rat like myself. Nephrite would attest to that, I'd imagine. If I hadn't killed him."

It was the first time Ami had heard Zoisite mention Nephrite's fate of his own free will, and the first confirmation any of them had ever had that Zoisite had been responsible for the scene in the park all those weeks ago. Naru had claimed Zoisite had been there, and they had believed her. Still, it hadn't mattered then and Ami was sorry to admit it, but it didn't matter now either. "But you loved him," she pressed instead, her heart unable to accept that anyone could love and be so hopeless about that deep feeling.

"What does that matter?"

"I didn't…Nephrite…I…" Her babble was induced by Zoisite's cool question, but a moment of quiet gave her ample opportunity to sort her thoughts before speaking again. "I know your kind can love. Nephrite proved that to us. I just thought he was the exception to the rule."

Zoisite snorted, crossed his arms. "Who says he wasn't?"

"The look in your eyes when you say Kunzite's name." The former shitennou did not argue this fact, merely looked away. Ami reached out a hand to instinctively lay it upon his arm, small fingers tightening on the expensive suede. "You love him. Why are you so hopeless about saving him the way you were saved?"

Zoisite was staring at Ami's hand, but he wasn't shaking it off. "He doesn't want to be saved."

"You didn't want to be, did you?"

He expelled a shaky breath, the expression in his eyes darkening even in the full glare of the moon. "I don't know!"

"What if he wants you to save him?" Ami persisted, not realising that her hand was tightening into a grip that would surely hurt Zoisite. "Surely he loved you."

"Loved me?" Zoisite's bark of laughter was harsh as he shook off Ami's grip at last. "Don't be an idiot!"

Rocking backwards from the force of the wrenched arm, Ami could only gasp: "What?"

"Kunzite-sama has only regard for that which is useful to him. My use is over. There is nothing left for him to want from me." The sentences were staccato rapid-fire, bitter and cold.

"You didn't always think that, did you?"

Zoisite's patience with Ami's persistent questions was obviously wearing dangerously thin; the way he spoke his next question was silkily dangerous. "Are you asking me if I intended to betray you for his favour?"

Ami firmed her rounded jaw. She had always been taught to speak the truth as she saw it, and Ami was intelligent enough to see the truth in almost all places she looked for it. "You did."

Some of his anger seemed to vanish at that, his answer wry. "You're too perceptive for your own good."

"We'll always stand by your side," she said quietly, "but only if you'll stand by ours." Zoisite seemed to have nothing to say to this, only staring at her silently. That empty expression had her adding near-grandly: "And I promise we'll help him to realise that being saved…is what he wants."

Though she tried to make her words as confident as possible, it seemed Zoisite was having no truck with it as he waved a hand in dismissal. "Ami-san, just forget it. I don't even know why I told you any of this."

"Because you want to save him." The surprise in her voice would have made the situation comical, if either was in the mood for laughter. "And you need our help to do it."

"Just forget I said anything!"

Even though his volume had raised two octaves, Ami dug her feet in metaphorically and said stubbornly: "I can't."

"I told you to forget it!"

Ami immediately changed tacks, seeking a way in which to make the slender man believe. "You still have power."

"I don't," he muttered, and as he spoke he conjured up what seemed to be a small dancing flame in his hand. Though its heat was intense and its glow bright, there was something…clean about the magic that had not been observable in the old Zoisite. "This isn't what Metallia gave me. This is what I always had."

Ami, fascinated by the small, merry flame in the palm of his hand, reached out for it. Her fingers lingering mere centimetres from the flame, she turned blue eyes to him in curiosity. "What you always had?"

"Whatever I was back in the Silver Millennium, I sure wasn't helpless." Before she could ask how long he had been able to do such things, he gave her a wry look and extinguished the flame by drawing his fingers into his palm. "It hasn't always been this way…it's been coming back in spurts. Too bad my damned memories can't do the same thing."

"The princess will help you to remember--" Ami began, but it seemed Zoisite's yo-yo mood had hit an angry upswing again.

"What if I don't want to fucking remember? What if I just want everything back the way it was?"

Aghast, Ami could only reply: "You can't want that!"

"So you expect me to get used to being looked at like I'm worthless trash by the only person who ever really mattered to me?"

"We'll help him too—"

Zoisite broke in harshly, though his voice seemed near-breaking. "Weren't you listening? He won't want your help!"

"But…" The anguish Zoisite had let bleed into his voice had her voice trailing off, broken and lame.

"If I had my old powers," he said in a low voice, his green eyes cold as he looked at her, "I'd use them to make sure this conversation had never happened."

Ami started, looking at him wounded and miserable. "Zoisite-san—"

Looking purposely away, Zoisite said coldly: "I'm not interested."

"But…"

"Just shut up and leave me alone."

Drooping, Ami actually pondered pressing him for several painfully silent moments before she accepted this battle had been lost. She left him to himself, sitting in the moonlight on the veranda; when she looked back she saw him holding his head in his hands like it hurt.

She knew within herself how badly it most likely was.

* * *

"And thus, the princess of the fallen kingdom is revealed to our sight."

Kunzite inclined his head. "Indeed."

"And Zoisite is alive," the queen mused, tapping long nails about the crystal ball with its roiling magics barely-contained within.

"Yes."

Beryl's smile was thoughtful, revealing pointed canines that only reminded her observers of a cobra preparing itself to strike. "And theirs."

"Yes."

"How peculiar," she said, and her remaining shitennou might have heard amusement in her tone if they had thought her capable of it in such matters. "I always knew him for an opportunist, but I never did expect him to give up all that he so desired here. He was always a creature of the dark. The light was never his need."

Jadeite's words were calm. "It seems a creature's needs can change."

"So it would seem," she noted, giving him a look that was as suspicious as it was thoughtful. "I will want that traitor back."

It was Kunzite who answered this unspoken question, bowing his head even lower than he had before. "Of course, my Queen. It will be done."

"He is to be mine to punish, Kunzite," she responded immediately, an intrinsic warning in her voice. "Your student he may have been, it is my boon to deal to him his punishment for his treachery." Even as she made to say more, the blond raised his voice again.

"Queen Beryl-sama."

"Jadeite. Why do you interrupt?"

"I ask of you that I be the one to bring back Zoisite."

"Why do you go against what has already been said, Jadeite?"

"I feel that perhaps Zoisite will be warier of Kunzite, given their former relationship. All teachers must punish their students, after all."

The way Jadeite spoke – carefully, slowly, as if slowly working up to the eventual climax – suggested he was in it for a long argument, but Beryl surprised him. "Very well. Bring Zoisite to me any way that you will and I will deal to him."

"And in the meantime?" Kunzite asked, and though his attention was fixed on the queen, Jadeite felt the cool eyes rake over his form and shuddered.

"Meditate as you will upon what we shall do with the princess and the prince, as well as their senshi. I will give you orders as I decide them. First I need to consider the avenues open to us."

"Of course, my Queen. Give my regards to our Great Leader."

"Dismissed."

Jadeite was not surprised to find Kunzite walking along beside him as they left through the same cavern from the audience chamber; what did surprise him was that it was the silver-haired man who spoke first. It was usually more his style to force the other to speak first and lay out his vulnerabilities for Kunzite to manipulate at will.

"It is my task to deal with Zoisite."

Jadeite stopped, but did not turn to face him. "We all knew about you and him," he said, already trying to calculate the best way to play out this conversation. Tangling with Kunzite – whether or physically or magically or verbally – was an art form no-one had ever seemed to master, not even Zoisite.

"What I did with Zoisite and how I trained him is my own business."

Jadeite turned to the shitennou now, folded his arms over his chest as he quirked an eyebrow. "How you manipulated him to suit your own ends, you mean."

"You speak as if you haven't used other creatures to your own ends," Kunzite returned smoothly, no emotion flickering on the stony features. "Must I recall for you the fact that your misuse of Thetis contributed to your own downfall from the Queen's graces?"

Letting his mental gears tick over without allowing it to show in his expressions, Jadeite returned mildly: "Thetis was different."

"Because she was merely a youma? Jadeite. Few of our kind are strong enough to control one of our own as we desire. Your envy of my power over Zoisite is futile. He was never your tool and never will be."

Though he was frowning at the thought Kunzite believed him jealous of his influence over Zoisite, Jadeite decided it was easier to let it lie and poke at something else a little more. "Because he only ever wanted to be yours, yes?"

"I never recall you speaking so long to any of us, Jadeite – and I have not the time for pointless nonsense. What is it that you really want?"

Things were definitely not going well, but Jadeite couldn't resist a slightly off-hand comment that he wasn't sure was entirely a good idea. "Being alone all that time must have made me long for company."

"I myself long for no company, particularly your own." With no further leave-taking, Kunzite turned with a sweep of his cape and made to take one of the branching corridors leading away from Jadeite.

"You want Zoisite back."

Kunzite paused at this, but did not turn back. "I have no use for traitors."

"You will always have some use for him. But he won't trust you if you offer him a way back into the Kingdom."

That had him turning around, the icy gaze a frozen warning. "What makes you come to that conclusion?"

"Because we all know you have no tolerance for those who turn on you, until they prove their usefulness again," Jadeite explained easily, purposely keeping his voice calm and even. "Zoisite _will_ come back to you, but he'll be wary at first. If I gave him opportunity to prove his worth through me, then he would come back to you far more easily."

"So you explained to the Queen."

Kunzite was giving him little quarter and Jadeite knew it; he was always perfectly aware that persisting might yield no better result. Kunzite was an immovable rock, frozen into the ground, but then ice could always melt. "I know you want to know why he did what he did. What would drive someone as devoted as him to leave you for the other side?"

"He is a treacherous, volatile creature. I should have expected little else from him."

Knowing Kunzite was unlikely to be so blind, Jadeite decided that he was just going to have to say it aloud first. "I think they did something to him."

"What could they have done to him to appeal to his desire for power and regard that he wanted from this place?"

"I intend to find out."

"He is mine."

Jadeite smiled faintly, though there was no humour in the expression. "He's Beryl's, really."

"Then aren't we all?"

"So she believes."

"So she believes," he echoed, and then he smiled. That was enough to make Jadeite take an involuntary step backward. So few people ever felt truly safe in the presence of this man. "Tread carefully, Jadeite. Just because you have spent so long encased in ice, it does not mean that you know how to skate upon it when it is this thin."

Jadeite shuddered as he turned away, knowing that the conversation had hardly gone well. The constraints upon the eldest shitennou's mind were far stronger than he could have believed, and it seemed not even his affection for Zoisite…he sighed, rested his hand lightly upon the wall for support while massaging a temple with the other.

"We're going to have one hell of a time bringing him around, Endymion-sama," he muttered.

* * *

She wasn't entirely sure how any cat could get quite this fat, but she was still not feeling inclined towards asking for any help with it. Adjusting it with care not to make her own discomfort obvious, Rei snuck a glance at Mako. She wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or annoyed by the sympathetic look that the tall girl was sending in her direction.

Tossing her hair, Rei simply looked forward as she set her jaw obstinately. Her arms could fall asleep all they wanted, but she was going to carry this lump all the way back to the address they'd found on its collar. She kept time with the sound of Mako's boots on the pavement and steadily avoided her curious gaze.

"Why'd you ask me to come with you?"

The question surprised her – she wasn't sure that it was normal of Mako to be so diplomatic and avoid the question Rei knew she really wanted to ask. "Because I thought I might like some company taking this oaf back home," Rei replied immediately with a careful shrug, no guile whatsoever about her words.

"So why'd did you volunteer to take the cat back?"

She shrugged again, the movement as graceful and fluid as any she ever made…or at least, as graceful as she could be while carrying an overweight and slumbering tomcat. "I'm not really sure. I suppose I just wanted some time out from everything, from everyone." She adjusted the cat again, and added in a much quieter voice: "It's all so complicated now, after all."

Mako nodded at that, the gesture sombre; however there was a teasing element in her next words that made Rei blink. "That still doesn't really explain why you wanted me to come along, you know."

Rei was beginning to wish Mako had just asked why she wouldn't accept any help; these questions about her motives for spending time with Mako herself were beginning to make her uncomfortable. "Like I said, I wanted some company," she replied, deciding not to look at the other girl while she spoke. Instead she kept her eyes firmly fixed on the path ahead and just kept walking.

"You also said you wanted to get away from everyone for awhile," Mako pointed out rather curiously.

Stopping abruptly, Rei turned to Mako with an expression that was both resigned and annoyed. "To be honest with you, Mako, I don't…mind your company. It's…easier, being myself around you. I can't really say what it is about Ami or Usagi, but…I feel easier around you."

Mako took the confession well, knowing how hard it was for Rei to admit that she needed her friends at all. With a grin, she turned back to their path and started walking again. "You know, I always thought you and I would make good friends," she said thoughtfully, even as she wondered how far Rei would want to talk about this.

"We're friends," Rei muttered, but she didn't sound so sure of herself.

"Not the way Usagi-chan would like," Mako qualified, which drew a snort from Rei.

"Well, not all of us are quite as hyperactive as the rabbit."

"Probably not a bad thing, but then Usagi-chan is really cute."

Rei's admission was grudging and made Mako laugh out loud. "In small doses."

"Oh, give her medium, at least. But you know, Rei? I'm glad you asked me to come along with you."

Perhaps that was too far, because Rei purposely kept looking away and made only a non-committal: "Mmm."

In an attempt to change the subject, Mako tabled an idea with caution. "I suppose you don't want to talk about anything Moon Princess related though, huh?"

"Depends what _you_ want to talk about," Rei replied, her brows furrowing as she thought about the delicate subject. "I mean…surely the princess will tell us what she thinks we need to know."

"But you don't think that what she thinks we need to know is really what we need to know, do you?"

Rei couldn't help but grin at the convoluted wording as Mako's voice trailed off in confusion at her own phrasing. "Yeah…I mean, I just…how far can we trust a princess who acts like she doesn't even need our protection?" Only seconds after saying this, she did add thoughtfully: "But if she can actually tell us something about who we were…who we _are_…then I suppose that I can't really complain."

"You really think we were all Moon people?" Mako didn't seem to expect an answer to her question as she looked up at the stars and frowned; she continued before Rei could even begin to formulate a reply. "It's so weird, to think we all knew each other once. And now here we are all again. Different, but I think still the same. In all the ways that matter."

"I would hope Usagi wasn't this much of a ditz back then, if she were the leader of the princess's guard," Rei observed wryly. "But…I think you're right. The important things probably never change."

"I wonder if Zoisite would agree."

"I do wonder what the princess will have to say about him," she admitted, privately only somewhat surprised at Mako's looking outside their own square, "but even then that's not really the most important thing. We need to know how we can bring down the Dark Kingdom once and for all."

Mako burst out laughing at this; at Rei's smoldering glare she slapped her shoulder affectionately and said: "You always were the most ambitious of all of us, Rei-chan."

"Someone's got to be, I guess," she muttered, but she was secretly pleased with her fellow senshi's assessment of her character. Ambition was a virtue, certainly, and it was a virtue Rei treasured in herself. "But you're with me, right?"

"I'm with Usagi. And the princess, of course."

"Then you're with me, because so am I. Though I know sometimes it might not look like it, I am with Usagi."

"And the princess?"

Rei was silent a moment; Mako was frankly unsure what to make of her pause in confirming the latter. "Of course I am."

There was silence a moment as they continued to walk in the cool night air; Mako said the first thing that came to her mind to break the quiet. She wasn't entirely sure it was the best thing to say, but she couldn't help but think that it needed to be said. "Maybe sometimes you should tell Usagi how much you actually do trust her, you know."

Rei didn't answer. Mako was about to press the issue when the dark-haired girl found something with which to change the topic. "This is it."

Even though she suspected that she shouldn't let this go, she knew that another opportunity would probably present itself; the timing wasn't right after all. Still, she couldn't resist a rather admiring – and pointed – comment at the other girl. "I can't believe you carried that lump all the way here by yourself."

"Guess someone can challenge you for the title of the strongest senshi after all, huh?" Rei replied with surprising high spirits, adding a wink on the end as she knocked on the door. Mako found that it made her laugh, and she couldn't stop even when the woman who answered the door looked at her like she was nuts. It felt good to be able to laugh at something, after all.

* * *

She didn't want to admit it, but it was…too weird, being alone with Mamoru now, in Rei-chan's bedroom. It wasn't just that he was Tuxedo Kamen, or the Prince of Earth. It seemed enough now that he was just Chiba Mamoru.

It was too easy to wish that Zoisite hadn't vanished to sit out on the veranda, and that Ami hadn't followed.

There was luckily a distraction in Rei's room that Usagi was all too happy to leap upon. While Mamoru seemed lost in silent thought in his private corner, Usagi flicked over pages of a well-read _Sailor V _manga. The girl-heroine seemed even more vivacious and incredible now that she had a real voice, a real face, a real _presence. _

_She's the Princess…my job is to protect her._ It was odd how that thought didn't disturb her in the way she thought it should. After all, all she had ever wanted was to be a normal girl – finding romance while getting through school well enough if only to graduate. Saving the world and a magical lunar princess had never factored into what she wanted from her life. But now…she recalled the feel of the moon-stick in her hand, and everything that made her normal…it just…

With a sigh, she set aside the manga.

"Mamoru-san." He didn't react to her words at first, still staring out of the window in his heavy silence. Chewing on her lip absently, Usagi tried again to strike up something approaching a conversation with the man who seemed now so distant from her. "Everything is so weird," she ventured in a louder voice, twirling a bit of hair around one finger.

"Mmm."

She wanted desperately to get his attention even though she had to admit herself that she was not sure why it was so important to her now. "We used to fight so much, I mean."

Those words made a shallow frown-line appear in his forehead. He turned to her and said in a voice she could not read: "We did."

The intensity of his gaze made a blush begin to creep up her neck and bloom across her cheeks, but she steadily ignored it. "It's strange how we don't, anymore."

The smile he gave her then was quietly tired, but brilliant all the same. "I can still call you odango atama if you like, you know."

Her first instinct was to stick her tongue out at him. "You're mean!"

Mamoru actually laughed out loud at that. "See, we can still fight if you like."

The sound of his genuine laughter was beautiful to her, and she realised that it was so simply because it was so rare. Why was it that she wanted him to laugh like that more often…and laugh because she had made him do so? "…I like it when you call me Usagi-chan," she said at last, smiling at him near-hesitantly as she wondered how dumb that comment must have sounded to him.

That had him raising an amused eyebrow. "You do?"

"It's nicer than odango atama, at least!"

Her defensiveness seemed to amuse him further, and for once his being amused at her expense didn't upset her as much as it usually did. "Probably suits you better, anyway."

"It does!" She crossed her arms over her chest, stuck out her chin in defiance even as she grinned broadly. "It's all because I'm a cute, happy girl!"

"You are indeed."

She had to look away at that; her attention then fell on the set-aside manga. It was hard to tell which reason really made her ask the question, but she did want to know about his opinion of the princess almost as much as she needed to change the subject at that moment. "…Mamoru-san?"

"Yes, Usagi-chan?"

"…did you always dream of her?"

"The princess?" The winsome grin faded as he contemplated this question very seriously. The eventual answer was quiet and careful. "Sort of. My parents died in a car crash when I was very young, you see. I was in the car at the time, and I was the only one who survived. I remembered nothing of anything afterward. Not even my name. They had to tell me everything about my life." He paused, took a deep breath; Usagi felt her heart begin to ache in tune with the pain that he was allowing to show on his face. "It was the worst moment of my life, realising I'd lost not only the people most important to me in the world, but that I'd also lost even the slightest memory of them. They were taken from me so completely that I just didn't know what to do."

Usagi's horror at this idea had her eyes wide and shining, seemingly near tears. "So what did you do?" she breathed.

Mamoru's shrug was deceptively casual. "I lived my life. My parents were wealthy enough that I was left with a healthy trust fund, and my guardians were kind to me. I didn't see them much then, and I don't see them often now. What was important was that they were always there for me when I needed guidance and assistance."

Usagi thought over this for a moment, finally saying in faint confusion: "…they sound more like teachers than parents."

"They were." Mamoru seemed vaguely amused by Usagi's uncertainty.

"That's so sad!" she exclaimed, tugging absently on one of her long pigtails. "I can't imagine not ever having my parents…or even my annoying little brother. How did you ever get by?"

"The girl in my dreams," he explained, this time with no distance in his eyes. He just watched Usagi carefully as if she could tell him something about this mysterious girl and why she was of such comfort to him. "She always spoke so gently to me. She was just a voice for so long, but recently…as I awakened as Tuxedo Kamen…she became clearer to me. A figure in the distance asking me to find the ginzuishou." He paused as he tried to explain something to himself before communicating it to the girl at his side. "She never called me her prince, but when Zoisite first did…it made a lot of sense to me. I suppose she's just going to confirm it, but I was the Prince of Earth during the Silver Millennium."

"And I was a Moon person," Usagi echoed softly, more to herself than to Mamoru. However, she fixed her blue eyes on the older man and said in a louder, stronger voice: "I protected her. I know I did. So we…we must have known each other back then, too."

"I'm sure I found a name for you as appropriate as odango atama back then, too."

"I hope not!" she grumbled, but she was smiling all the same; somehow the thought of knowing Chiba Mamoru back then as well as now, it was…comforting. Strange, given how he'd driven her nuts so often in this life alone. "But isn't it weird, to think we've known each other before? Maybe even been friends before?"

"It is." His smile was oddly sad, but kind all the same. "But it's also quite nice."

Usagi found herself really _looking_ at him then. She'd never really thought about what his life was like before, but now, thinking of anyone she knew being alone like that ever had her saying in a rushed voice: "Let's be friends now, no matter what!" Without thinking, she reached out with both hands to press them over his, her grip warm and surprisingly strong.

Surprised at first, but then he turned his hand over and tightened his own grip on her hand. "No matter what," he echoed quietly. And wondered why the words tasted so bitter in his mouth.

Usagi drew back her hand after a long moment; there was a faint blush high on her cheeks as she looked outside. "The moon's so pretty."

She was obviously embarrassed and he knew that he was too, though he couldn't put his finger on precisely why. It was with relief that he welcomed the distraction that presented itself in the form of Ami, from both the stilted conversation and the emptiness of his palm without Usagi's small hand in it. "Ami-san," he said, with a polite nod in her direction.

"Ami-chan!" Usagi looked up with a big grin, a characteristic admired by all her friends. She inevitably looked happy to see anyone she considered worth her time, and that seemed to include most people she ran across. "…how's Zoisite?"

"He's not happy at all." Ami's voice was little more than a whisper as she took a seat on a cushion beside Usagi. "He is really taking this all very badly. He just…doesn't really know why he's doing anything that he's doing. It's hurting him."

Usagi balanced her chin on one fisted hand, screwing up her nose as she did so. Still, her expression was deeply thoughtful as she looked up at Ami. Something oddly mature in those blue eyes had Mamoru finding he had to look away from the picture she presented. "What do you mean?" he asked of Ami, wondering still what it was about Usagi that just…just…drew him in.

"He protected you and the princess, Mamoru-san…and it wasn't because he wanted to." This confession made her frown, and it was obvious she was near frustrated tears. "Something inside him is compelling him to do these things, and…and I think he's reaching the end of his patience with it all. All that feels real to him are his memories of being Zoisite, and today I think he just realised how much that personage is slipping away from him."

"Because he saw his teacher?" Mamoru asked.

"Yes."

"I wish I could heal him," Usagi brooded aloud, tugging on the moon-charm about her slender neck. "But only the princess can help, can't she?"

Ami bowed her head, her bangs obscuring her eyes. "Only if he wants to be helped," she said quietly.

Mamoru stood. "I should talk to him."

His progress was halted by Ami's soft words. "I think we need to let him be." Mamoru did seem to understand, sitting back down again, but Ami couldn't help but offer up a mental plea to the man in question himself.

…_please, Zoisite-san. Whatever you remember, remember that we are your friends now…and that we will protect you as long as you need us to._

* * *

"Great Ruler," Beryl said reverently, bowing her head to the ground. She knelt prone before the great organic casing that housed the malevolent spirit which animated the entire kingdom she claimed dominion over, her voice low in supplication. "I come to you seeking of your wise counsel."

"Servant Beryl." The hoarse rumble of the voice reverberated through her entire being; of course Metallia's presence was concentrated in this sacred chamber, but the queen was truly everywhere. Her power was strongest in this holy place, and Beryl's own magics strengthened with the proximity of the true Queen. "I know what brings you to me."

"They were mine," the woman could not help but hiss, the words exploding from her like bullets from an automatic weapon. "They were _mine_. How can they be taken back?"

The imprisoned queen seemed unimpressed by Beryl's chosen wording. "They were always and forever bound to me, and not to you. You forget your place, servant."

"Forgive me, Great One," she humbled herself, even as her unnatural eyes snapped fire; she could be forgiven for thinking that because they were turned to the stone floor that Metallia could not see, but Metallia was beyond sight. She knew almost all in her realm.

"But the Prince of Earth's shitennou belong to this realm now!" Beryl continued, her voice rich with frustration. "I took them all from their demesnes and named them for the power that you grant us. How can they remember what they once were?"

"It was the girl," the voice rumbled, scorn evident in every word. "The girl who holds the moon-stick of the dead queen. It houses much power."

Beryl looked up at this, disbelief all over her pale face. "Surely that girl can't heal with that thing!"

"The girl is stronger than she looks," the entrapped queen mused aloud, her cocoon shifting in colour as her thoughts deepened. "She uses the moon-stick well, but have a care to remember that Zoisite was always the least bound of all Endymion's shitennou. He was the most loyal to his Prince, and the last to fall. He broke the bond of the stone because of that."

"They were always meant to be mine," the lesser queen hissed, hands curling into fists upon the breathing stone of the sacred chamber. "_My guardians_. I should have been Queen of the Earth, not that idiot moon-child!"

"Your fancies of the past are not my concern now," Metallia said coldly, the intensity of her voice obviously used to make Beryl aware which of them was truly in charge here. "The past is dead. You failed me once, Beryl. I gave you everything you needed to take your place at Endymion's side, and yet even with his shitennou you could not bring down the Moon Queen."

Her protest was bitter. "How was I to know she would kill herself over her spawn?"

"You underestimated the power of the love that drives them to do all that they do," and the disgust in her disembodied voice cut like a serrated blade through Beryl's own words. "Though you can not understand it, it makes it no less powerful. The Queen would have done anything for her only daughter and her kingdom. Do not even imagine for a moment that her daughter would not do the same."

"Her daughter is a fool and her Prince will be mine this time around." The vow was rich with force of Beryl's not-inconsiderable ambition. "She was a weak girl when I knew her then. She can't have changed much."

"I imagine she has," and there was something in her manner of speech that suggested Metallia was not expecting any input from Beryl on this matter. "She feels different indeed."

"Nobody ever changes in ways that really matter," the red-headed woman scoffed all the same, flexing her fingers like the power within wished to seep out and destroy the girl then and there. "I will have the shitennou back, and their Prince with them. The princess will fall, this time forever. I will use the energy of her death to bring you back into this plane, my Queen, and you will be as a goddess as I am ruler over Earth."

The conversation was drawing to a close; this was heralded by the distraction in the spirit's voice, the way her cocoon's light dimmed and wavered as she withdrew into herself. "His stone sits in the space appointed it in the shrine," the departing queen told Beryl calmly. "Take it. He is too far from it now for it to be of any use, but when he is back in the Kingdom you can influence him once more."

Beryl stood carefully in the long gown she wore, stepped easily over to the space in the wall of the chamber that was characterised by the four alcoves holding four roughly hewn stones. She drew the one that sat in the space corresponding to south on the compass, holding the dim stone lightly in the palm of her hand. The other three she ignored, though any observer would see that while two were equally as dim as the one in her hand, the western one was bright with a roiling, organic light. The flash of that stone caught her attention at last, the resulting question hardly surprising. "What am I to do with that one?"

"He is my concern, not yours." The disgust evident in her expression suggested that the fact the stone needed to be her concern was the direct result of Beryl's idiocy. "His death was complicated even without impinging memories of Endymion. You bring back Zoisite, and I will bring back Nephrite. Then you can have the prince and his shitennou and release me at last."

The woman bowed her head, the hand holding the stone held over her heart. "As your will decrees it, my Queen."

The sincerity of her words was perhaps in doubt, but as Metallia slipped into uneasy slumber she did not concern herself overly. Arrogant a servant as Beryl had become, as it was she and "her" shitennou would prove to be of great use yet…even those who were slipping so conveniently out of her grasp.

* * *

"We're together at last."

"We are." Luna spoke for the group, bowing her small head reverently to the young girl with the platinum hair. Sailor V had been the last to arrive, her moon-cat a slight but sure presence at her side. What had thrown all of her audience off immediately had been the fact that she was still dressed in the brief fuku of Sailor V, though her mask was not present. That was perhaps what led Rei to ask in a quietly authoritative voice:

"But who are you?"

The girl sighed, but there was a determined set to her lovely features that spoke of the fact she would not change her mind easily. "It's better if you don't know yet."

Mako frowned at this, folding her long legs beneath her. "How are we supposed to protect you, then?" she asked, balancing her chin precariously on one hand.

Even though she should have looked at least mildly ridiculous, dressed as she was in the company of six very ordinarily clothed individuals, something inside her made her shine.

Pushing some of her long hair away from her face, she said simply: "By trusting me."

"But there should be five of us, right?"

That question took her off-guard; her pale eyes were widening as she looked over at Usagi. "What?"

"Luna always said we were looking for another senshi," Usagi pointed out, furrowing her brow as she saw Sailor V's surprise. "The fifth. Do you know who she is?"

The direct question gave her further pause. Though she was capable of looking strong and confident, as she chewed her lip then she looked deeply young. The confidence didn't return until she glanced down at Artemis, who nodded faintly. She raised steady eyes to Usagi and said in a crisp voice: "Sailor Venus."

"You know her?" Usagi asked even as Mako spoke over her with: "You know where she is?"

The second blonde girl nodded. "She knows what is going on but she can't join us yet."

"Why not?" Mamoru asked.

"She has been watching out for me up until now," she told Mamoru in the slow careful way she had, so regal in her formal speech. "Sometimes I think that I trust her even more than I trust myself. Believe me when I say she will reveal herself when she is most needed."

"But why can't she come out now?"

"We should always keep an ace up our sleeve, Usagi-san." The explanation was as kind as it was brief, inviting no further argument. "Just know that she is watching over me all the time. When we need her most, she'll be right there with us."

"She must be really amazing, to have looked out for you all this time."

That made Sailor V laugh our loud, the sound light and sweet. It suited her right down to her pretty smile and sparkling eyes, as she chuckled: "She has her moments."

"So what do you know, princess?" Mamoru asked finally, bringing seriousness back into the conversation and her eyes.

"What do I know?" she asked, inviting further clarification.

"About it all," Mamoru pointed out. "Why we are here. What we are to do."

"We are here to defeat the Dark Kingdom," Sailor V said simply, though before anyone could speak she explained what she meant in further detail. "Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom sealed them away many years ago, during the fall of the Silver Millennium. She wasn't able to destroy them completely. That task falls to us, those she saved by sealing away until we were needed."

The phrasing made Usagi look more than a little taken aback. "Sealing us away?"

"You were reincarnated as the Dark Kingdom stirred again." The didactic tone of Artemis was responsible for those words, the white cat's eyes serious as he met Usagi's. "Now that you are all awake and are beginning to at last come into your powers, the Dark Kingdom is also stirring itself to full power."

"That seems to be a pretty big coincidence," Rei said thoughtfully.

There was no smile on Sailor V's face now. "It's not a coincidence at all. It was always meant to happen this way." Crossing her own long legs, she smoothed out the short skirt and frowned as she sought out the words she needed to explain. "We were born at a signal from the Kingdom. The dark energy grew strong enough that our slumbering spirits were awakened, sent into the world again so we could grow into ourselves and our powers once more. This is the way it was always meant to be."

A long slow breath was expelled by Rei, followed by a single reverent word. "Destiny."

"It's a powerful thing." And something in Sailor V's body – her eyes too old in a body too young – left not a single mind doubting that she knew from personal experience just how powerful.

There was silence for a long moment that was broken only by Ami's soft voice. It was the first time she had spoken up, though her computer remained silent and powerless in her still hands. "If we're meant to destroy the Dark Kingdom, what…what about Zoisite-san?"

That made Usagi sit up even straighter, giving a startled look to both Ami and Zoisite. The pair were seated together on the other side of the room, and even though Ami was usually silent, Usagi wondered what was holding Zoisite's usually over-active tongue this evening. "Yeah, Ami-chan's got a point…if Zoisite is part of the Dark Kingdom…?"

"Challenging me to a duel, are you?" he said, his first words of the conversation darkly amused.

Before Usagi could sort out any reasonable reply to that, Sailor V came in with quiet words of her own. "Zoisite is not truly of the Dark Kingdom."

"Then what is he?" Mamoru asked, as if the individual in question was not in the room and listening to every word that was spoken.

"Zoisite was a member of Endymion-sama's elite guard. He was also one of the Earth's shitennou." Before anyone could ask a definition of that, she raised a gloved hand in a near-imperial gesture that asked for silence and accepted nothing less. "They…were not like the princess's senshi, but they were not dissimilar either."

Luna was staring off into space, her eyes clouded and distant. "…I remember…"

Rei was picking at the cover on her futon, looking periodically between Mamoru, Sailor V and Zoisite himself. "Did they have powers like ours?"

"To a degree," Artemis explained. "They were elemental powers, mostly. They were associated with the four points of the compass, the four directions of the world. All were lords in their own right, kings of a fashion, but they existed to protect the King of the Earth…and that was what Endymion was to become, when he came of age and married the princess of the Moon."

"So why is Zoisite _Zoisite_, then?" Rei asked.

"The betrayal of the shitennou is why Earth fell to Beryl." Artemis spoke with a clinical detachment that still did not quite hide his distress at what had become of the world he had once been a part of. "With power over them, she held great sway over Earth. Endymion fled the carnage to seek help from the Queen of the Moon, but was followed."

Zoisite's silence was painful as he stared at his hands; Ami was giving him a worried look which he was steadily ignoring.

Mako let out a low whistle. "Why did they betray their prince?"

Sailor V's gaze was firmly locked in the direction of the only shitennou currently present. "I can't answer that."

Zoisite's lips were held tightly as he took in the way that everyone was staring at him now. "What makes you think that I can?" he exploded finally, holding his hands so tightly about each other it was as if they were bound.

Mamoru seemed unable to help himself. "You're the one who did it!" he shouted, fury and frustration evident in every harsh word.

The smaller man's face was as pale as bleached bone, but that only made the furious shine of his eyes all the more obvious. "I remember nothing!"

"Why did you do it?" Rei seemed unable to help adding her own two cents as she leapt to her feet, though she was trembling as she spoke. "_How_ could you do it?"

"I don't remember!"

"Rei-chan, please."

"He has to remember," Rei said as she took her seat again, her anger quietening though her eyes were still bright with something that approached tears. "How else will we know he won't do it again?"

The words were practically spat at her feet. "Because I protected Endymion-sama against Kunzite-sama."

"What?" Mako asked, seemingly willing to be involved in the conversation again now that the shouting was dying down. She never backed down from a fight, but she had to be sure one was necessary before she would get involved. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Bowed his head, anger seeping out of him like sand from a broken hourglass. "If I can betray Kunzite-sama for Endymion-sama, then there's nothing left for me in the Dark Kingdom any longer."

"I don't get it." Mako said, giving a look to the answers as if she thought they might. The baffled looks that were returned to her assured her that they didn't – save for Ami. But Ami was not even looking at her, instead reaching out a hand towards Zoisite's arm nearest her.

"Zoisite-san—"

He shook off the gentle touch, crossed his eyes and looked at the others defiantly. "I loved him."

"Loved him?" Rei blinked.

"He was everything to me," he explained, words succinct and cold. "I gave myself over to him so much that he was the only thing that mattered to me. And yet even with that knowledge burning a hole inside my heart I still throw all of that aside when I have to choose between Endymion-sama and Kunzite-sama. It can't be any other way."

"…but he was your teacher, wasn't he?" Usagi asked in a small voice, her mind obviously trying to process all the implications of what Zoisite was saying. She was adding two and two and coming up with eight hundred and ninety-six.

"In all things," he said, low and ironic. "It made him much more than a mere teacher, Usagi-san."

"…but…how does that even work?"

Zoisite seemed to be taking some characteristic amusement in the situation at last, arching a well-formed eyebrow at the startled moon senshi. "Do you need me to draw you a diagram, or what?"

"I think we could do without that, thank you Zoisite," Mamoru protested, deciding now was as good a time as any to nip this interesting little development in the bud.

"Oh, come on, Endymion-sama. I promise I won't use you as one of the models."

"Good grief, I would hope not!"

There was a sudden sigh to break the banter; they all found themselves looking at the tired form of the princess as she laced gloved fingers together. "I don't have time for this."

"You should." Rei said quietly, and there was only disappointment in her words.

"Time is shorter than you know, Rei-san," the beautiful girl explained, her fingers still clenching about each other in what appeared to be nervousness. Sailor V seemed utterly unaware of what her wilful fingers were doing, however; she stood suddenly, hair falling about her like a silken curtain. "I must go now. I will meet with you all again soon."

Rei's eyes were wide. "But how are we supposed to find you?"

"I'll find you."

Artemis's reply was slightly more diplomatic than that of the princess. "If you need us before then, Luna can always try through Central Command."

"But princess!"

Sailor V turned back to Usagi, impossibly elegant and beautiful in the light of the moon streaming through the windows. "Yes, Usagi-san?"

"Can't you heal him?"

Giving him a long look that seemed to suggest she couldn't, she asked in an unreadable voice: "Heal him?"

"With the moon-stick." She held it out promptly, like she'd been wanting to do so all evening. "Surely…I did it this far. Can't you finish it?"

"No."

The flat answer was clearly the last she had been expecting. "Why not?"

"We need the ginzuishou."

"Could you heal anyone with that?" Rei asked quietly, even as Ami echoed the question herself.

"Yes."

"All of us?" Zoisite asked dully as he looked up at the shining figure she presented.

"All of you who live, yes. If you want to be healed."

Some emotion seemed to seep back into his eyes at that, a faint twist of a smile upon his lips as he asked of her: "What makes you think I don't want to be?"

"Because you don't know what to do with your freedom, do you."

The flat statement made him look away, both Sailor V and Zoisite apparently content with the silence their brief exchange had wrought.

"…so what do we do now?" Mako asked finally, hoping a little practicality would normalise the peculiar air that had descended upon the group. "I mean, sure we need the ginzuishou…so how are we supposed to get it?"

"I say we wait for them to make their move," Sailor V said without pause, gaze even and her hands stilled.

"Are you sure?" Mamoru asked, a faint frown-line breaking his forehead in two.

"Yes. This is enough for now."

"So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Rei asked, unable to prevent a note of snappishness from entering her voice. She couldn't help but think to herself: _I almost wish Usagi **had** been the princess…at least then I'd have known what to expect and how to deal with her! A bubble-headed princess is beginning to sound a lot more attractive than this…self-sufficient mature girl-woman we actually got._

"We will keep the nijizuishou separate, to prevent them from surprising and overwhelming a single keeper," Artemis mused aloud. "Until we can gather all of them and rejoin them, I think that would be best."

"You can't leave now. We've barely started!"

"I'll know when you need me," Sailor V said quietly, a faintly sad smile on her face. "For now, this is the way things need to be. I'm sorry, Rei-chan. I might not be the princess you expected, but I'm what you've got."

Rei was silent.

Mamoru's voice interrupted the movement of the girl to exit the room. "Can I speak to you before you leave?"

"Of course," she said as she bowed her head. "Please don't be long."

"In private."

"…there shouldn't be any need," she said, her smooth feathers seeming to be somewhat ruffled by this curious demand. "You can say what you need to here."

"I don't think I can."

Sailor V's pale eyes passed over the quietly drooping Usagi, and then shuttered abruptly. "For a moment, then," she said firmly, nodding to the door. "I really do need to leave."

The pair left the room then, leaving the other four girls and two moon-cats alone. Before anyone could think to address Artemis the little cat nodded his goodbyes, jumped up, and vanished. Even as Luna began spitting tacks, Usagi stood herself and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" Rei asked, voice only slightly suspicious.

"The bathroom," she said, voice distracted and distant. "I'll be back in a minute."

Out on the veranda, Sailor V had already settled her slim body on the edge of the polished wood. She was looking out at the moon and seemingly lost in a world of her own when he said to her: "Princess?"

"Endymion-sama," she said in reply, and sighed heavily. "What do you want from me?"

"…it's all right if you call me Mamoru," he said slowly, nodding at the space beside her. "May I join you?"

"I prefer to keep things the way that they are," the blonde told him quietly, but she indicated the space next to her freely. "So what is it that I can do for you?"

"A lot, I think." After staring at his hands for a long moment, he let a long shaky breath go. "Princess, this is very hard for me."

"It is hard for all of us. Endymion-sama, but I can't tell you anything more than I have already said. It's not the time." Though her soft voice had been deeply apologetic in and of itself, she added quietly: "I really am sorry about that."

"I don't doubt you are." Meeting her eyes squarely, he told her the truth. "I don't want you to tell me more of the war of the Silver Millennium. I want you to tell me something else."

"What is it?"

"The princess of the Moon and the prince of Earth were to marry, as you said. Join their respective kingdoms…but the match was more than political."

The girl looked away like the sight of him suddenly burned her. "Endymion-sama."

"I don't remember much of anything," he mused aloud. "None of us do, except for Zoisite, but even then his circumstances aren't exactly the same as ours." The meandering thoughtfulness of his voice vanished as he stated in a hardened voice: "You don't trust him, do you."

"It's not that I don't trust him as he is now, though I have to admit that I don't," the girl explained, her voice so quiet it was hard for him to actually make out what she was saying. "It is just that while you all remember too little, I remember too much."

"It must be a terrible burden for you," he said quietly. "And it's a burden I want to share."

"Not yet." The words lacked finality, and she spoke them like they hurt. Still she refused to meet his gaze, looking away at the ever-changing orb of the moon.

"We loved each other, didn't we." The statement was flat as Mamoru at first kept all his emotions regarding this truth firmly to himself. "Then."

She wouldn't look at him.

His voice near-broke as he asked of her: "What's to stop us from loving now?"

Her eyes stayed resolutely away.

"Serenity." The name came to his lips easily, falling off his tongue like it had always been his to speak. "_Serenity_."

"_Not yet_."

He reached for her limps hands, grasped them so that he forced her to turn and look at him directly. She had shown so much confidence in herself and her mission before; why was she so lost now? "You feel it as much as I do."

"What I do or don't feel isn't important right now," she replied, some strength coming back into her eyes and voice as she tried to pull her hands away from Mamoru's strong grasp.

"What if it is all that will save us?" he persisted, not letting go.

"What?" she asked, surprised enough that her tugging stopped as her hands went lax in his.

"You are the one who will save us. I know that. It's all I ever dreamed about before you came. You need us, of course, but it's you." Mamoru leaned in closer to her, his voice fading to a low whisper as he told her urgently: "It falls to you to save us, but we will do anything to help you achieve that."

"What if I told you that staying away from me would be the best way for you to help me?"

Mamoru firmed his grip and told her easily: "I would understand that perhaps you don't always know what is best for yourself."

She started to pull away again, her lovely face seeming on the verge of tears. "Endymion-sama—"

He kissed her. It was a delicate gesture, Mamoru leaning in to catch her lips carefully and gently; it lasted barely a moment but caught as they were beneath the light of the moon, it could have lasted forever.

"Why did you do that?" she whispered as he drew away; he had released her hands and they had both risen to touch her lips in amazement, her blue eyes impossibly wide.

"The past doesn't have to rule us unless we want it to," he explained in a husky voice, his own hands falling to rest quietly on his thighs. "I'm trying to decide how much I might actually want that."

With her hair looking like ice caught ablaze in the moonlight, Sailor V stood and looked to the small white cat who had finally entered her field of vision. "I need to go," she said distantly, and if Mamoru looked hard enough he could see the way her hands were shaking.

Standing himself, Mamoru couldn't help but reach forward, ghosting his fingers over the delicate strands of her hair. If he looked deep enough into his memory, something like this….something like this… "I need you to stay."

"I can't." With that said she at last walked away, a slight figure of blonde hair and deep burdens disappearing into the shadows of the night that even the bright moonlight could not illuminate.

She was so concentrated on leaving, he so fixed on her vanishing form, that neither of them saw the small figure with the bowed head slipping further back into the shadows that had hidden her from them their entire conversation.

* * *

Dashing away her tears, Usagi couldn't help but feel utterly frustrated with herself. It made no sense after all, to be so hurt by what she had seen. She didn't love Chiba Mamoru! Tuxedo Kamen…well. That was different of course. It wasn't like she'd even known him, he had just been an illusion…like all the heroes of shoujo manga, he just waltzed in and waltzed out, seen only in a good light…

…_but then I liked him even when he was actually in a **bad** light…and he was…I just…_

Chiba Mamoru had always irritated her, and that had been enough to imprint him on her mind. She was so happy-go-lucky that no-one (aside from Shingo, but then what were little brothers for, if not being total pains in the butt?) had really ever driven her as crazy as him.

The turmoil in her mind was making her feel like screaming, and the weight in her coat pocket was only making her heart beat faster and more erratically. In frustration she pulled out the object at last; it blurred in her vision as her tears came flooding back.

The locket.

…_I knew I should have given it back to him. I'm sure it's hers, after all…the princess gave his locket to him. And…and he never really gave it to me. It's theirs. Not mine._

She was clutching it so tightly that the catch that held the lid closed had released; it took some time for the tinkling music to filter through to her mind. With a barely withheld sob, she snapped it closed and the music died. Her frustration and misery heightening even in the ensuing silence, Usagi found herself balling up a fist and aiming the pretty golden locket at the cold concrete before her.

But she couldn't bring herself to let it go.

"It's not fair!" she shouted suddenly into the cold night, not caring if she woke up the people sleeping behind the tall walls of the quiet neighbourhood. Her tears beginning to fall unimpeded now, she slid down to her knees and buried her face in her hands. The locket was warm against the damp skin of her cheek.

"_It's just not fair_," she repeated in a hollow whisper as she wondered what it was she was really talking about.

"Life rarely is."

The even voice from behind her had her whipping around in horror; she was far from elegant in her miserable mortal form, however, and promptly sprawled inelegantly before the blonde man. "Jadeite!"

"Tsukino-san." Though she was lying before him in an incredibly prone and defenceless form, he made no move to step close to her. Rather he simply inclined his head in a most genteel manner and made a request that was no the less bizarre for its politeness. "I need to talk to you."

"No way!" she squealed, her hand reaching up to grasp at the other locket she carried…the one that would never let her down. "Back off, or I'm warning you…you're so dusted!"

Jadeite seemed unmoved by her panic. "It's about Zoisite."

"You leave him alone!" Usagi shot back, pulling her legs back underneath her; she wanted to stand, but given both hands were taken up with lockets she didn't have enough leverage to do so. "He's on our side now, like he's supposed to be! Like _you're_ supposed to be!" she added, wondering what he would make of that.

His calm acceptance of this truth was not quite what she was expecting. "Hmm. So you do know now."

"Know what?" Usagi returned even as the henshin locket began to warm underneath her trembling fingers.

Running gloved fingers back through his thick hair, Jadeite gave her a look that was near-amused and partly apologetic. "I'm going to have to ask you a favour."

Though she would never be the sharpest tool in the shed, Usagi knew that despite his bizarre behaviour as of late, right now was a damned good time to be suspicious of his motivations. "What kind of a favour?"

"Right now?" Jadeite asked with a brilliant smile that had Usagi's eyes widening exponentially. "Just don't throw up on me when we go through."

"Through?" she repeated with furrowed brows, looking up at him in surprise. "Go through what?"

There was no time to provide an answer to that, or so Jadeite must have thought; even as the last word left Usagi's lips his hand was on her arm, yanking her back into the dark portal he called up with hardly a thought. The girl had no time to react, and when she did, her reaction was precisely what he had hoped it would not be.

"…I thought I asked you not to do that," he said with a groan, releasing her arm and stepping back far enough to avoid the splashback.

Usagi continued to retch, her face deeply pale; her eyes were bright with annoyance as well as pain when she looked up to glare mutinously at him. "You didn't give me a chance to make any promise," she snapped back, though she had to look away to continue throwing up.

"I'll give you that," he said with a raised eyebrow, and then shook his head. "So now what shall we do with this interesting little development, Usagi-san…?"

**END CHAPTER EIGHT**


	9. Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking

**Author's Notes:** Just a quick piece to say thank you for reading, for starters – I find this story really rather amusing myself, but it's good to know the nonsense I produce is worth reading for others, too! Secondly, this is the first full chapter I have written in a long time…the other chapters were written quite a while ago, so here is hoping that this is going to flow all right. All feedback in much appreciated, and – thank you again for coming along for this ride.

**Nine: Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking**

_In which plans are made not to go awry/princesses are called to duty/choices are made and turned upside down and/friendship, love and duty are all a girl's best friend._

"What is this?" he asked as he turned over the stone in his hands; he held it like it was a small piece of the universe – infinite and incomprehensible.

"I have changed my mind," the queen said, and from the way she spoke – low and amused – she knew the explanation of the nature of her gift would amuse her greatly. "You are to locate Zoisite – and this will aid you in making him once again useful to us."

"This stone?" he asked; it was a fine specimen of zoisite, indeed, but despite the matrix of its elemental structure Kunzite did not feel the power emanating from it that he would expect from one of Metallia's toys. "It feels empty."

"It _is_ empty," she granted, and as he raised his eyes she added smoothly: "It will bend his will to yours."

Comprehension came easily as he realised that it was not what was within the stone that was important – rather, it was what it currently _lacked_ that was significant. "You want him to stay with the senshi," he said, slowly and thoughtfully; the understanding of what she intended was dawning upon him, and unconsciously his gloved fingers began to curl about the stone.

"Very good," and her smile was bloodless despite the fangs it revealed. "He will be of more use to us if he is a part of what they are."

"An insider."

"Precisely." Anybody else might have sounded pleased with the way a subordinate had followed her thoughts; Beryl, however, merely regarded it as mere common sense. "The range on this particular stone is short and it has far more power when used in this realm, where Metallia's power exists in all forms to amplify its energies. However, if you use this stone upon him out there, and command him to return to this realm, he will do so. Once here, we will make him mine again in all ways."

Kunzite watched her facial expression carefully, but she was impossible to read; even as a master of the poker face himself it was hard to see beyond the cruel lines of her lovely features. "You wish your traitor returned to you, my queen?"

This time she flashed her teeth only momentarily as she smiled; if not for the restrained malice in her eyes, she might have appeared very beautiful. "I do."

"I will seek him," he said, one hand to his left breast as he bowed forward; the stone was cool in his gloved palm. Unspoken was his desire for knowledge of why he would chose to do such a thing in the first place, but even though his eyes were directed to the floor Beryl saw something in them all the same.

"I do not want you querying him as to what makes him stay with the senshi." Her voice was hard, her long fingers stilled over the orb beneath them. "At this stage I believe it was the moon-stick's work that left him believing that throwing in his lot with them was what he should do."

Of the four shitennou, only Kunzite could hold his head so high as he questioned her judgement. "I thought you believed he had betrayed us."

"Our Great Ruler thinks otherwise," she said, and tapped one red nail against her chin. "His mind is unstable. I do not wish to place any more cracks in it by making him examine what it is that they have done to it."

"And thus not create more cracks in his weakened state?" he asked, only just restraining the irony.

"It is a gift from Metallia-sama herself," she said, quite suddenly; the out-stretched arm pointed directly to the stone he still held over his heart. "Do you not trust our Great Ruler?"

Many of Beryl's words were laced with barely-tempered violence, with withheld malice; these, however, were more dangerous than usual. "I trust her with my entire existence," he said strongly, and once again she smiled. It was not joy that made her so; it was satisfaction in the exercise of her beloved power.

"Then use the crystal as I bid you." As he was already bowing to her, he could not see her expression at all as she added: "You are not to seek counsel of your own from Metallia-sama; she sleeps, and she dreams. You have her orders, and she wishes you to fulfil them as I bid."

"As you say, my Queen."

"As I say." And the look that she gave him suggested she felt the disdain only mostly hidden by his veneer of cool clear ice.

"And what will you have Jadeite do?"

"I believe he has already found a way to distract himself." A look of concentration flickered across her face briefly, and then she said in a clear voice: "Jadeite. Present yourself to your Queen."

There was only the briefest of delays before red energy gathered to Kunzite's right, and the blond man appeared. He was already bowed, straightening after a moment of deference to his ruler. "You called for me, my Queen?"

"What have you done with the girl?"

Jadeite purposely didn't look at Kunzite, even though the stronger shitennou's head snapped around to stare at him. "She is still unconscious from the spell I placed her under. When she recovers I will take appropriate measures to make sure that she remains docile and in our hands."

"The girl?" asked Kunzite, unable to not voice the question.

Jadeite's eyes and words were bland as he nodded to his left. "Sailor Moon."

"_You_ brought Sailor Moon into the Dark Kingdom?" He couldn't have masked the incredulous tone, even if he had wanted to.

"I have changed my modus operandi since the last time I undertook missions for our great rulers," Jadeite said rather diplomatically, tilting his head so that his eyes were near-unreadable in their shadows. "I think we are all agreed that in recent past they were…less than successful."

"And what good would using the girl as a bargaining chip for the remaining nijizuishou do, given that we have not yet calculated a fashion in which to remould the ginzuishou itself?" Kunzite asked coolly, crossing his arms over his chest. "You do realise that you are drawing them into our realm – for in my experience of those senshi they will not take the appropriation of one of their own lightly."

Jadeite raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying that you are made nervous by the thought of the senshi in the Dark Kingdom, Kunzite? Given that we would have the tactical and sorcerous advantage—"

"The nijizuishou are useless alone," he interrupted, the smooth voice of a man unaccustomed to being ignored. "And rejoining them is a process more suited to the light than the dark. While it is possible for us to rejoin the facets, it will place a drain on Metallia that would be tactically inadvisable if the senshi decide to storm the Dark Kingdom."

"Do you think they would really get far?"

One corner of his mouth twitched down slightly; it was the equivalent of a dire frown for the cold man. "I would not underestimate them, Jadeite. It could be said that that is the reason why you failed so often in the past – as you yourself so eloquently noted."

"I understand your concern," the blond noted, rather gamely; the light tone of his voice made something inside Kunzite begin to keen a low warning. The man had not been so easy in his speech before the sojourn in eternal sleep. "But I have in mind something different to what you have stated."

"…go on."

"I will take the nijizuishou to the senshi and tell them that we must have the ginzuishou in return for the life of Sailor Moon."

He arched a silver eyebrow, and though it was a compliment it was not intended lightly. "You impress me."

"I thought it a potentially useful plan," he said, extending his hands forward in a gesture not unlike a shrug. "It takes the burden of regeneration from our limited energy supply and ensures the success of the process as it will be performed by one of the original creator bloodline."

Beryl apparently had tired of their banter; her tone was near-bored when she snapped her own two cents: "So when will you undertake this mission, Jadeite?"

Jadeite bowed his head again, his eyes calm as he raised them. That alone was enough to make Kunzite tilt his head, narrow his eyes; he had never seen him so calm in the face of Beryl's harsh manner. "I will, with your majesty's permission, take our demands directly to the princess herself."

"But how will you find the princess?"

"I know her Terran identity."

The words were as stinging as the crack of a whip, but more disturbing in that they promised far worse if the answer was not to her liking. "And why was this information not shared with us earlier, Jadeite?"

"It was only recently brought to my attention, and I did not think that targeting her directly would be in our best interests at this stage. We need her alive and well to regenerate the ginzuishou."

"And could she not have done that here?"

"I suspect the energies of this realm would have impeded her too much. She is young, and uncertain in her powers. It is better if she does it outside and brings it to us."

"Very well," she said slowly, but her eyes were speculative as she reclined backwards in her throne. "We will deal to her when the ginzuishou is ours."

"It will be so, my Queen."

"Give the girl the crystals and the ultimatum, Jadeite," she said, with a flick of one hand that declared him dismissed. She then turned to her second remaining shitennou, yellow eyes dark. "Kunzite. Make ready your charge. Even if those girls bring the ginzuishou in here with the full intention of using it, a traitor in their midst will lower their chances even further. They can't win, but there's no harm in stacking the odds further in our favour."

"Agreed," Kunzite said softly, wondering all the while what it would be like to feel his hair running through his fingers once more. His distraction meant he missed the look Jadeite was giving him, though Beryl did not.

"Jadeite?" she snapped, and he turned to her with the first evidence of ill-ease he had displayed during this audience. "You _do_ realise the price of your failure?"

"Yes," he said, and he swallowed hard.

_Oh, in the name of Terra, do I ever._

_

* * *

_

"Usagi's _missing_?"

Rei was pacing erratically across the floor, the slap of her bare feet against the wooden porch as relentless as waves against rock. "We have to do something. Hell, that bastard Jadeite probably got to her!"

Luna rubbed her temple with one paw, sighed. "I'm so sorry I let this happen. I…if I'd been more careful…I should have taken her home, I know that. It just…seemed more important to go to the arcade, get on to Central Command."

"Luna, you can't blame yourself," Ami said, rubbing the cat's head soothingly; the gesture was almost as comforting to her as it was to the actual cat. "We'll find her."

"Of course we will!" Rei said, stopping to whirl back around and face her comrades. Her hands were held tightly about her upper arms, the knuckles near-white – but her face was a mask of utter calm. "But not on our own."

"…what do you mean?" Mako asked, already looking like she wished she wasn't asking it.

"Sailor V." At the blank look Mako gave her, she sighed and rolled her eyes skyward. "She's the princess, right? She's strong enough to sort this out." And then she was staring at Mamoru, who in turn decided to find the blossoms on the distant trees really rather interesting.

"Rei-chan, we have no idea where Sailor V is!"

"Like that's going to stop me," she replied to Mako, running one slim hand back through her hair. "It's her fault, you know. If she'd just stayed here…if she'd let us all be one….but no. She has to run off on her own, and now look what has happened to Usagi! She should be here. I won't let her stay out of this."

Given they were all seated on the porch, save for Rei, by the time the raven-haired girl had disappeared down the stone staircase they were barely on their feet.

"…what does she think she's _doing_?" Mamoru said, incredulous; although he himself had tried to talk Zoisite into creating an entrance into the Dark Kingdom the moment he had heard the news, he wasn't at all sure where Rei thought she was going. At least his idea had had _some_ chance of success, the general helpfulness of his shitennou notwithstanding; not one of them had any idea where the elusive princess might be.

…_she wouldn't even tell **me**. What does that say about this "relationship" you want to pursue with her, then…? Perhaps the past…it really is better off left in the past._

Usagi's laughing face floated into his mind, and without thinking he clenched his hand into a fist so tight he felt the skin break.

"I dunno, but I'm going with her." Mako stood up, grabbed her baseball cap from the railing she'd snagged it on, and brushed off her shorts. "Call us if you find out anything, okay? I don't think we'll get anything much, but well, Rei-chan's a bit of a pitbull." Her expression was wry as she flipped them a wave, and then sprinted off across the courtyard.

"I'm going back to Central Command," Luna announced, and though her voice was strong her entire small body seemed wracked with exhaustion as she stood, stretched. "If I stay on the line there's more chance of me getting through."

"What if I run the connection through my computer?" Ami said suddenly, looking up from said little device. "Or Usagi-chan's communicator? Then you can stay here and we can work it out together."

"I don't think it would work. I know you know your way around these things like nobody else does, Ami-chan, but the way my link with Central Command is set up…I'm not sure it would work easily." The crestfallen look on the girl's face had the cat touching one paw to her knee, her dark eyes gentle. "And you've got enough to worry about right now. You just do what you can, Ami-chan."

"It's okay, Luna. I understand."

Zoisite, who had chosen to opt out of much of the conversation – at one point Mamoru had even checked him to make sure he wasn't sleeping, so unusual it was – stretched out his long legs with a frown. "You know, I never would have pegged Rei for being Usagi's knight in shining amour. Isn't that your job, Endymion-sama? Oh, wait, you've got a princess now so you don't need to worry about her anymore, right?"

Mamoru swung around, wondering now why he had ever _wanted_ Zoisite to join in the conversation. "Shut up."

"Hit a nerve there, did I?"

He swallowed hard, counted to ten – neither action calmed the hot blood beginning to course through his veins as he stared at the slender man watching him from the opposite end of the porch. "Stop it or I'll hit _you_."

"Zoisite-san, please!" Both men swung around to see the blue-haired senshi staring at them both with a mixture of misery and pity in her eyes; she was actually very near tears. "We don't have time for this!"

"I'm sorry, Ami-san." And Mamoru didn't even both to hide his surprise at the easily offered apology, or the way Zoisite moved closer to the girl; he was frowning over the little LCD screen of her computer without even being asked to do so. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Well…you must know how you got in and out of the Dark Kingdom."

"Are you suggesting we go in there?" Mamoru leaned back with a whistle; he might have all but come to blows with Zoisite over the same question in his apartment not two hours before, but this was unexpected. "Ami-san, no offence meant, but you're the _last_ senshi I'd have expected to say that."

"It might be our only choice," she said softly, still jitter-bugging her fingers over the small keys. "I don't see how Usagi-chan is going to get out on her own."

"But it might be that they're using her as some sort of a bargaining chip," Zoisite pointed out slowly, eyes narrowing as he leaned over Ami's shoulder and followed her string of code. Even as he spoke, he pushed a few buttons of his own. "We might all be better off waiting for them to tell us what they're planning to do with her."

"And what if they don't tell us?" Mamoru snapped, unable to keep the hostility from his tone.

"Do you know how to get in there?" Ami asked Zoisite, craning her neck around to face him as her fingers stopped dead. For a moment he looked surprised to be so close to her; as soon as that moment passed, he leaned backward and raked tired fingers through his mussed hair. Mamoru had to admit that although he was half-convinced Zoisite didn't give a damn about Usagi, the fact that he had come to this meeting looking like he'd been dragged through a bush backwards was enough to convince him that he was probably thinking of someone not himself.

"I used to make gates, Ami-san. And those gates are just…worm-holes, I suppose. I would fold reality to create the shortest space physically possible between point A and point B. It wasn't an easy thing to do and the gate is always inherently unstable and they usually fall apart fairly rapidly."

"You're implying that Beryl was making a stable gate," Mamoru pointed out sharply.

"Perceptive, but wrong," Zoisite said, and his tone was flat as he added: "Beryl _is_ making a stable gate between there and here."

"Oh my God." Ami's small hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide above it. "What is she planning to bring through it?"

"The end of life on earth." Mamoru's voice was as flat as Zoisite's, but his eyes blazed dark blue fire. "That's it, isn't it?"

"An army or ten, sure," and though the flip of his hand was a glib gesture, his own eyes were pained. "Darkness to cover the earth."

"But why would anyone want that?"

There was something very off in Zoisite's gaze as he turned it to Ami; Mamoru had to admit he understood some of Zoisite's expression. Only the senshi could ask a question as simple, as innocent, as _pure_ as all that. One might as well ask the sun why it shines, or the sky why it rains. "Metallia feeds off negative energy, and the deaths of millions of people by the means Beryl has devised…there will be enough for her to feed on to keep her satisfied for hundreds of years to come. After that? They'll move on. She's a parasite, a vampire of negative emotion. Beryl's just her servant."

"Her avatar?"

"No, her _servant_," Zoisite corrected Mamoru, his tone very sure. "I've never know Metallia to act through Beryl. I doubt she could hold her." And then, quite abruptly, he pushed to his feet and hopped lightly down to the ground. "I'm going for a walk."

"…are you sure you want to go by yourself?" Ami asked; her hesitation screamed that she wanted to ask him why he was going now, but yet she let it go.

_Oh, Ami_, Mamoru thought, in something very close to despair. _He was my loyal shitennou **once**, but…why is it that you want to trust him, to help him the way you do? It is all in the past. We are in the future. Who says that what went once will come around again…?_

"I'm just going down the street. It's not like you won't be able to hear me screaming."

"Just let him go," Mamoru said quietly, and Zoisite raised an eyebrow before he turned and disappeared. It might have been a thank-you, but Mamoru wasn't interested in working that out. Instead he took the shitennou's vacated place at the Senshi of Mercury's side, and looked to her computer screen. Almost immediately he winced; how had Zoisite understood _anything_ of the garbled lines of numerals and letters before him? "…Ami-san, do you think you'll be able to use any of that information he's given you?"

"He's very smart, you know," and Mamoru couldn't help but roll his eyes skyward; he hated being shown up by the guy, his master or not. "I'm not sure sometimes he realises how smart."

"What makes you say that?"

"He doesn't…you might think he's really arrogant, but I think he just…he's never been given opportunity to realise how special he can be, just by being who he is."

She said all that with her eyes firmly upon the screen; it made them hard to read, but the faint tremor in her fingers had him sighing inside. "You really like him, don't you Ami."

The deep blush that coloured her pale cheeks was all the evidence he needed. "What?"

"Look," Mamoru said tiredly, wondering how on earth _he_ had got shafted with this job, "he's…Ami. I know he was once one of my guard, and I believe that Usagi-chan did something amazing for him with that moon-stick, but…it's not over. Until the princess and the ginzuishou end all of this, I want you to be careful around him."

"I am careful!"

The squeak in her voice might have made him laugh, under other circumstances. "I just don't want to see you get hurt."

"I _am_ careful," she repeated, but this time it sounded like it was directed more at herself than at Mamoru. Before he could call her on it, however, she raised her voice and looked to him with a melancholy twitch of her lips upward. "We're just responsible for him now, you know? And I think that at heart, he's really a good person. Really."

He looked at her for a long moment – and the only reason he eventually spoke was because he had realised that even if he stared at her forever, he'd never understand her. "…sometimes the faith you girls have scares me," he said – but he could not stop the slow smile. "But mostly…I'm glad for it."

She smiled back at him, her hand briefly warm over his. "So am I, Mamoru-san."

* * *

He was three blocks away from the shrine when he heard the voice behind him. "Zoisite."

The syllables of his name, enunciated so carefully in that cold voice, sent shivers down his spine – and although he stopped his forward step, he did not turn. "Leave," he said; his voice was soft, but it did not tremble.

"Do you believe you are in any position to be giving me orders, Zoisite?"

"I don't have to listen to you," he said softly, and even as he tried to fight the urge he found himself turning, turning back to look at the man on the path behind him. "Get back before I call for help."

Each step closer was as smooth as silk, the steady push forward of a glacier as he moved out of the shadows that crowded about him like servants, like lovers. "Do you think they'll answer?" he asked, almost idly; the pale eyes were sharp, tinged with disdain. "And really, Zoisite, I thought I trained you better. Surely you could hold your own long enough for help to realise that you needed it."

He never knew how he managed to hold his voice as steady as he did. "I mean it."

Kunzite shook his head; the long silver hair rippled like living crystal, like moonlight stolen from the Moon Queen herself. "Do you really think that without their leader those inept girls could do anything to hurt me?"

"You're not enough to stand up to the princess," Zoisite said quietly, his spine straight; Kunzite had ceased to move forward, standing some four feet from him, but he was already calculating escape routes that might give him some cover from any attack. Staying and facing the man was out of the question. It would have been so even when he had been Metallia's little flunky.

"With her ginzuishou, perhaps," Kunzite mused aloud, taking up Zoisite's gaze and not allowing him to look anywhere but directly into his eyes. "But without? She's just a girl with a short skirt and a few lightning bolts." He took one step closer, one hand raising from his side. "Zoisite."

Of course he opened his mouth to scream for the senshi.

Of course it never happened.

The crystal left Kunzite's hand, shimmering like a tiny mirage packed in on itself; now barely three feet from Zoisite, the light that exploded from it was concentrated solely on the slender man alone. There was nowhere for him to go, and like a deer in headlights he was frozen, waiting for the inevitable.

"Listen to me," Kunzite said in a low voice, every word careful in his incantation. "Hear my voice."

Zoisite's eyes fixed on the shimmering lump of zoisite levitating some inches above his gloved hand, yet there was consciousness in those washed-out eyes. "No," he breathed, but it was a mere whisper, without force; an empty gesture with no motion.

"_Hear me_," he insisted, in a voice that near crooned; Zoisite's eyes fluttered under the weight of the hypnotic words, even while he obviously fought viciously against the power of his suggestion.

"I don't want…!"

"What you want is what I want, Zoisite. Hear me now, and obey." Kunzite smoothly adjusted the lines of the spell, let more magic flow through the crystal; the body he held immobile jerked as if it had been hooked to an electric current. It was so strange, Kunzite mused, to see him this way – dressed in the style of the humans he had always regarded with such disdain. And all his hair, it was tightly braided away from his face; where were the silken waves Kunzite remembered so well?

"Hear me," Kunzite said, pushed more of the energy taken from Metallia through the crystal, and into the shitennou himself. "_Hear me_."

Zoisite moaned, hands clenching into fists. Kunzite was surprised to see the resistance; Zoisite had never been _weak_, but he was needing to put more power into the crystal that he had originally intended. With the beginnings of reluctance, Kunzite channelled further energy through the conduit – he knew surely the pain would be starting now. As he expected, Zoisite gasped, arched his back – and yet it was not the pain his former lover was in that shocked him. No, it was rather that the movement brought back a body-memory that had Kunzite's own flesh crawling with sudden warmth, traitorous body set alight by the beauty of the slender figure before him.

"There is much you must remember, Zoisite," he said, voice low and careful, as commanding as the pull of the earth on the moon. Inside his heart was beginning to clench, his body beginning to yearn for something more…but on the outside he was as stone. "But what you must remember most is this – you are of the Dark Kingdom. You are of Metallia."

"No," Zoisite said, but his clenched fists began to loosen.

"Do not resist."

The husky voice was agonised. "I must!"

"You are mine." The words escaped before he could stop them, the words that held the most truth and therefore the most power over this man. "_Mine_."

The momentary slip was in fact the best thing he could have done; Zoisite's eyelids, which had drooped as his mind had fought to reject the suggestions given, snapped open. "_Yes_."

And ah, there it was – the weakness, the line of cleavage along which all breaks would occur. "What was said to you in crystal song – disregard it. Hear only my voice, and know that you are mine."

"Yours," Zoisite said; his eyes were open and yet he seemed to be dreaming while awake. The expression therein was soft, tinged with mixed memory and desire. The jolt that skipped through Kunzite's heart when those eyes turned to meet his was electric.

"What I command of you must be."

"And so shall it be," Zoisite said, and he smiled.

"Will you come, if I release the hold upon you?"

The smile turned deeper, the younger man looking up from beneath long, dark lashes. "I will come to you, only you, _always_ you."

Kunzite could scarcely hold back the tremor in his own voice as he lowered the stone, dropped his grasp on the invisible energy lines that had held his partner still. "Come to me, Zoisite."

There was no hesitation as he stepped forward – only perfect trust. "Kunzite-sama," he said softly, and then he was in his arms.

"…Zoisite." The body was as fragile as blown-glass in his grip, all long limp limbs; they entwined about him like the Spanish moss, like ivy about stone. "Zoisite, you will hear every word I say and you will remember."

"I will," he murmured, whispering the words into the line between throat and jaw; Kunzite swallowed, tightened his grip as Zoisite smiled against his skin, ghosted his lips across its warmth.

"But only in the deepest part of your mind," he said, and his voice was hoarse; he knew he was digging his fingers too tightly into Zoisite's hip, into Zoisite's shoulder, and yet he could not stop. "No-one must suspect, but you are mine still. _Mine always_. Do you understand?"

"Always and forever yours!" And the joy in that voice made it very hard for him to speak.

"They have lied to you." Zoisite's face was still buried against his chest, but Kunzite clearly heard the small sound of regret, of disbelief. "They have tricked you. I will not do the same. Know that we will bring the darkness across this world, our great ruler will triumph."

Zoisite sighed, pressed impossibly closer. "I want only you."

"You must do your part," Kunzite commanded quietly, and found himself with Zoisite's hair tangled about his fingers before he even realised he was stroking it. "Come with the girls into the Dark Kingdom. Encourage them. Aid them…and when you are back in this place, then I will come to you, and we will be together."

For the first time he looked upwards, meeting blue with green. "Always?"

The simple request, the little teasing smile about those lips…Kunzite, the perfect cool and calculating high king of the Dark Kingdom, could not resist the temptation to kiss him. He crushed his lips to those of the willing man before him, yanked off his gloves without even thinking of the consequences.

"Only yours," Zoisite breathed against his lips. "Only ever _yours_!"

Kunzite pushed him back, up against the wall; the slender body pressed against him, underneath him, was driving his dulled senses mad. The thick red-blond hair he remembered so well felt like heaven beneath his bare skin; digging his fingers into it, he loosened the tight braid he had worked it into and released every strand.

This was no time or no place to remember what it was to be with this volatile creature. But his body would not separate itself from his mind and he felt like he was losing control as Zoisite moaned into the kiss and tightened his grip on Kunzite's arms so that his nails dug in deeply.

The silken shirt beneath his questing fingers was very different from the harsh fabric of the uniform he remembered; but even though the tactile sensation of it was much preferable, it was still in the way. He was undoing buttons with his mind even as he slipped cold fingers against the burning skin, Zoisite's breathing quickening into short sharp gasps as he did so.

_What are you doing_? The rational part of his mind questioned, even as his body took over.

Zoisite was not complaining, coming to life as he was under the touch of his lover. But when he started making a motion downward, Kunzite's mind snapped into place.

"Enough."

The feral eyes widened as Zoisite took in the greater meaning of that single word – but he understood that it was meant. Still, he would not have been Zoisite if he had not still challenged him. "I don't want to be apart from you. Don't make me leave!"

Kunzite's aching body wanted nothing more than to acquiesce – but that was not the way of the highest shitennou of them all. "You know what will be done must be done."

"Let me stay!"

"Zoisite." With the flick of one powerful wrist, Kunzite had the pointed chin in his fingers and forced Zoisite to look up at him. Yet those wide eyes…he felt his resolve waver. _I thought he had betrayed us, and part of me knows he did no matter what Beryl says. I should forget him. He is of no real use, but he…he…_

"You will do what I ask you to."

Zoisite stared at him like he could stare right into his soul. "Then ask me to stay."

"I am asking you to go," Kunzite said coldly, but he could not hold the ice back from melting; he was after all far too close to a creature that burned far too brightly in his mind and soul. "I will wait for you to come back."

"Kunzite-sama," he said, but it was a sigh; he was looking away as he mouthed the words. Kunzite couldn't let him turn away, and stopped him by pressing lips over his again. The kiss lasted too long and he knew it; his heart was skipping and it was all _wrong_.

…_it was supposed to be for Metallia, that I wanted him. Metallia, so that we could…we? **I** wanted all of this. It was for myself, all along!_

"Go back to your little moon-people, Zoisite," he said, pressing him away with more force than he had intended. "Go to them – but come back to me."

"I'll bring them to you," he said as he walked away – but then he turned, looked back. His slim silhouette, half-turned in the lengthening shadows of evening, was coquettish and inviting. "But the most important thing I'll bring back to you is _me_."

The stone was too warm in his clenched hand as Kunzite watched the only creature he craved walk away from him again.

* * *

The girl was mutinously eating when he returned to her. He saw no point in beating about the bush, and so he asked bluntly as he sat down in front of her: "Do you have your moon-stick?"

"Like I'd tell you!" she snapped back, spraying crumbs all over the table. He had to admit he was impressed; not only by the range, but also by the tone of her voice. He'd expected tears and shrieks, not smart-assery from this one.

"Look, Usagi-san," he said, quite unable to keep his amusement out of his tone, "you might not have a lot of reason to trust me, but you're going to have to." He leaned back in his chair, propped his boots up on the table, and extended his arms in mock-apology. "I'm not giving you a lot of choice here."

"There's always a choice," Usagi replied with a pout, looking down at the food before her. She looked like all she wanted to do was go back to eating, but had only just realised who had given the food to her.

He watched her dilemma with a grin he didn't bother to hide, even though he made sure his voice was utterly serious as he pointed out: "I just want you to make the right one."

Usagi suddenly blew out a long breath, one hand twisting about her left ponytail. "But…it's just…oh, it's…dumb!" She picked up a riceball and pulled it into two frustrated halves; she continued to speak around the food in her mouth. "I don't know what you're doing, but—"

"I'm helping you defeat Beryl."

Usagi promptly choked on the riceball, which Jadeite found really rather gratifying. "_What!_" It was easy to see she was taking him seriously now, given she had shoved the food aside like so much maths homework. "Why would you want to do that!"

"Because I remember everything."

The blue eyes widened, her hands clenching about the edge of the table. "…remember…everything? What, like the Silver Millennium and the war and Queen Serenity and the princess and _everything_?"

"Yes," he said, and once again had to fight the urge to laugh. If anything was worth the effort and the pain of what he was going through, what still lay before him, it was being able to do things like this.

"…so why are you fighting against us?" she asked, and he figured it was fair enough; he still would have preferred it, however, if she'd lower her voice a little. As he remembered things, she'd spoken with a fair bit more decorum back in the day. _Ah, well…the past reflects on the present, but it doesn't **control** it…_

"But the princess said you used to be on our side!"

"I am on your side."

"Yeah, like snatching me off the street sure proves that!"

He stood then, counted off twenty quick paces before turning back to her with even eyes and no smile. "I brought you here because I need your help, Usagi-san."

"Well, sure, _that_ sounds likely – I kinda need some proof here." She promptly crossed her arms over her chest and frowned, as if she thought it would make her look threatening; Jadeite had to suppress a snicker. No, it really would not do, to tell the girl on whose shoulders his life rested, that she actually looked like a constipated guppy. "What can you tell me that can make you sure you're really on our side?"

"I know who the Moon Princess is."

She took a moment to answer; when she did, it was utterly puzzled. "…well, sure, we all do."

"Perhaps," he granted, noting with pleasure the lines that appeared in her forehead as she considered that little conundrum. "The important thing, Usagi-san, is that I can give her what she needs to make the ginzuishou."

"The nijizuishou?"

"Mmm," he agreed, and counted off another twenty paces to keep him on an even keel before turning to her and adding: "But I need you to help, Usagi-san….because _you_ have the ginzuishou."

Now she was really confused – and though it did send a flicker of disappointment through him, at least she appeared to have forgotten that he was the guy who had once tried to flatten her with some of Boeing's finest. "Um…that didn't make any sense to me."

He laughed – he didn't see the point in even attempting to hold it in. "It doesn't have to, at least not yet. I just need you to trust me, and do what I say when the time is right."

"Like what?" she asked, following his pacing about the room with trepidation.

"Follow me."

"…follow you _where_?"

"Back home." And he watched the flicker in her eyes, and nodded with a smile. "I _will_ take you home, I swear."

"…you still haven't said anything to make me trust you yet," she said finally, her eyes troubled. That was enough for him; as long as Usagi saw him as a person and not a metaphor, he would be safe. That was how _she_ had been, after all…and this girl held that woman inside her heart as surely as they all did.

"But remember, I did feed you."

She blinked, and then grinned at him so sunnily he almost took a step back from her – she was so bright! "…well, yeah, I guess you did."

Jadeite laughed again, because he didn't _want_ to hold it in. "Usagi-san," he told her, utter affection in his voice, "you're not exactly the way I remember you to be, but…I can see her when I look at you."

"See who?"

"Your mother," he gave her, even though it was not strictly true. "I've got some reconnaissance to do. Stay here – I'll be back soon, and I'll tell you more then."

He then left Usagi alone with the food that she couldn't obviously quite decide if she wanted anymore. Curiously Jadeite paused outside the door…and found five prompt seconds later he'd lost the bet he'd made with himself already. Usagi was merrily chowing down again with no regrets,

He shook his head as he walked off down the corridor, but he understood the sentiment perfectly himself. Waste not, want not, after all.

* * *

"It took a lot of arguing, but Mako-chan's dragging Rei-chan back now," Luna confirmed as she closed Usagi's communicator. "She's not happy to hear that Sailor V is on her way…even though all she wanted three hours ago was the princess, now she seems to think that we should do all of this without her help."

"She's just upset," Ami said quietly; she could understand very well Rei's fear and frustration, even though she herself couldn't imagine ever reacting in quite the same way. "And worried about Usagi-chan."

"We all are." Luna's voice was flat, but Ami could still see the tremor in her large eyes. It seemed to be as much distraction as anything else that caused her to swivel her head and look over to the former Dark Kingdom shitennou. "…how's he now?"

Zoisite lay motionless on a divan that they'd procured from Rei's room, a cold compress pressed to his forehead as he answered for himself. "I think it's only getting worse."

Ami absently removed the compress, still typing on her computer as she pressed fingers to his forehead. "…still no fever. I think you're just over-stressed, like the rest of us."

"Mmm, but the rest of us aren't lying around moaning about it."

Zoisite hissed, sounding an awful lot like a tea-kettle experiencing an electrical appliance's equivalent of PMS. "Shove it, Endymion-sama."

"Come on, the princess doesn't need to come in here and see us all arguing like four year olds," Mako pointed out sensibly, causing everyone to look up in surprise. The brunette stood tall in the doorway, a mutinous-looking figure at her side. "Hey, guys. Brought you back a Rei-chan!"

"Thanks, Mako-chan," the raven-haired girl said dryly, but she didn't seem to be taking much offence at Mako's friendly jibe. "So where is she?"

"She's not here yet," Mamoru pointed out, resisting the urge to check his watch again. He'd been obsessively watching the hands move about the face since Luna's relayed message that the princess was on her way, but he didn't see the point in fanning the flames of Rei's obvious impatience.

"No worries about being on time, eh?"

"What did I just say, Rei-chan?" Mako's voice of reason was as firm as the bark of an oak, and just as natural. "Calm down, huh? We're all as worried about Usagi-chan as you, and if we're going to help her we really need to work together now."

"I know," she said, and sat down heavily. "I _know_. It's just…I can't take much more of this. We have to do something."

"We'll do something."

All of them looked up and over at the door again; even Zoisite raised his aching head to stare without comprehension at the owner of this new voice.

"…who are you?" Mamoru asked finally, the first to relocate his voice as they all stared at the slender girl in the unfamiliar uniform. She seemed faintly familiar, with large blue eyes and a shimmering curtain of pale blonde hair, but then…

"My name is Aino Minako," she said, and gave them all a deep bow. "I go to Shibakouen Junior High School."

"But who _are_ you?" Rei asked, even though something in her voice seemed to suggest the name was on the tip of her tongue; only some peculiar spell seemed to stop her from ripping away the veil.

"I'm Sailor V." She tiredly tossed her long blonde hair, and for the first time they all noticed the small white cat sitting quietly by her feet. "Minako is my real name. This is who I really am."

"You changed your mind fast," Rei couldn't help but point out, sharp question in her tone.

"There's no point in hiding anything anymore. It's all too late for that." Her school case was held limply in her hand, and the small cat looked up at it with a sigh before speaking himself.

"We've got a lot to talk about, you guys."

"Like we didn't last night!" Rei seemed unable to help the words, although she didn't look like she objected to the way Mako then elbowed her.

"The situation has changed and we must adapt to it," the white cat said briskly, ignoring the exchange; in fact, he seemed to have eyes only for the blonde princess under his charge. "We have some disturbing news."

"So do we," Luna said quietly.

"We're aware of Usagi-san's predicament," he said, and closed his eyes briefly. "But there is something far more dangerous at work here."

"More dangerous than Usagi being in the Dark Kingdom?" Rei said, and this time Mako didn't try to get her to calm down – as it was, she looked like she was on the verge of shouting something similar herself. "Where the hell have you been anyway, _princess_? Attending a ball?"

Minako seemed unmoved by the anger of Rei and Mako, the disbelief of Ami, Luna and Mamoru. "Getting these," she said quietly, flicking the latch of the school case; a moment later, she upended it and its contents tumbled out in a sparkling rush.

"Oh my God!" Ami's hands flew to her mouth. "The nijizuishou!"

The three missing nijizuishou lay before them in a quiet pile; Minako only knelt before them in silence, her hands on her knees. She did not have to ask for Rei to bring out her own, nor for Ami and Mamoru to do the same.

"We have all the nijizuishou," Rei said softly, looking at the shimmering indigo crystal in her own hand. Was it her imagination, or did is gleam brighter in the presence of all its fellows? "_We have all the nijizuishou_!"

"But how did you get them?" Luna gasped, as entranced by the scene as they all were.

Minako brushed one hand over her eyes, and for the first time they all noted the dark circles under her eyes. "I was given them."

"By who?" Mamoru asked, his own two crystals held lightly in either hand.

"The shitennou of the Dark Kingdom named Jadeite."

Ami cast a look to Zoisite, who had since gone back to staring at the ceiling with the compress firmly on his aching head. Nothing about his stance suggested anything of what he might be thinking of the situation thus far. "…why would he do that?"

"Because he's the one who took Sailor Moon."

"Shit," Mako breathed; she reached out one hand towards the crystals, drew it back before touching them; it was as if she feared they might burn her if she got too close.

"But still, why would he do that?" Ami asked.

"A bargain struck." Zoisite's flat voice gave the answer; when they turned to look to him, he was yet still lying on his back on the divan. "He wants you to form the ginzuishou, and then use it as a bargaining chip for the safe return of Sailor Moon."

Minako nodded, pressed her lips together. "Correct."

"Oh, geez," Mako said, suddenly as pale as Minako herself. "We can't…we can't give them the ginzuishou…but we can't leave Usagi-chan there!"

"Rescuing her would also be out of the question." Zoisite's face was pale and drawn in the glittering colours of the crystals, and still he would not look directly at them. "Not one of us would come back alive."

"Speak for yourself! I say we go right in there and get her back!"

"Rei!" Luna sounded aghast. "I know you're upset—"

"I can't believe you think that it's not our place!" she shouted, standing before them all with her feet planted wide and her hands in fists at her sides. "Usagi needs our _help_! Sure, she's a ditz and a klutz and sometimes a downright baka atama, but we can't just leave her to them! What about duty? What about loyalty? What about friendship? What about _love_?" She then spun to focus the considerable power of her blazing violet gaze on the still-seated Minako. "Well, princess?"

She was calm even under the powerful gaze, hands limp on her lap. "Rei-san, please."

"Don't give me that crap," she snapped, and promptly dropped to one knee in front of the blonde. Her face was all but in Minako's as she said clearly and furiously: "You're the princess, aren't you? We were born to protect you, but it seems to me lately that you're perfectly capable of looking after yourself. So, if that's true, why don't you use some of that power to look after those who only wanted look after you?"

"Rei-chan, c'mon, this isn't helping," Mako objected, one hand reaching out to rest on Rei's shoulder. "I know you're upset about Usagi-chan, but screaming at the princess isn't going to fix anything!"

"Yes it is, Mako-chan." The hand was pushed roughly aside as Rei indicated the crystals upon the floor with a vicious swipe of one hand. "Form the ginzuishou. Now."

"Rei!" Luna cried; her white counterpart only watched the proceedings from Minako's side with silence.

"I mean it!" Her eyes flashed fire still, but they shimmered with something far more miserable. "I know it would be crazy to go running in there now, but if we have the ginzuishou…we'll stand a chance. I know it." Rei pounded her hand over her heart, her voice all but breaking on the next words. "Right here, I know it!"

"But we don't know anything about the ginzuishou," Ami said quietly, and though her words were sensible the tears standing in her eyes suggested that she hated that which she knew to be true. "Would it _really_ be strong enough to protect all of us? And…and if we go in, Rei-chan, you know it wouldn't be just to save Usagi-chan."

"We'd have to get through Queen Beryl to do it," Mako said thoughtfully, and strangely she sounded less upset than the others did. "We'd…we'd be able to end all of it."

"If the ginzuishou is strong enough," Mamoru murmured, watching the conversation from the sidelines.

"It is." All attention swivelled to Zoisite, who hadn't bothered to sit up before speaking; his eyes were still closed and he in fact pressed the cold compress even harder against his forehead before continuing. "It is, if one knows how to use it."

"How do you know that?" Mako asked, unable to help herself.

He snorted, but still didn't open his eyes. "I've seen it done."

"We've all seen it done, at some stage," Minako said dully.

Zoisite's look was sharp as he looked to the blonde girl in the different uniform. "But it would drain the energy of the user to the brink of death – and most likely beyond. As it did Queen Serenity."

"She's the princess. It's her duty," Rei said, and though it was obvious she was trying to make her voice cool and clinical, her shaking hands betrayed she knew the horror of what she was saying. "As it is our duty to risk our lives for our friend, and for the protection of the earth!"

"I am not afraid of death," and the voice of the princess was soft; her sigh was like the last breath of summer being swallowed by autumn. Her head was now bowed, long golden hair falling over her face to conceal her eyes. "Your plan makes some sense, Rei-san, it is just…"

"Well, you could at least form the ginzuishou, couldn't you?" Mako said, uncertainly; she looked very much like she didn't really want to get involved in the argument. "But then…Usagi-chan's got the moon-stick, right? Do we need that for this?"

"Maybe we won't have the moon-stick," Rei said swiftly, staring at the girl, "but you don't really _need_ it, do you?"

"It is a focus. It is simply more dangerous to use it without it."

Rei rolled her eyes, looked on the verge of kicking whatever was in range of her restless feet. "So form it already!"

"We have a big problem with that." When she looked up, her blue eyes were as clear as a summer sky, and as hard as stone. "I can't form the ginzuishou."

Zoisite sat straight up, his headache seemingly taking a backseat to this revelation. "What?"

"That's impossible!" Rei immediately countered, her frustration clear as crystal.

"I _can't_ do it," and despite her power just a moment beforehand she seemed near tears now; her fingers were bloodless as she tightened them about one another in her lap.

The cat at her side looked troubled; he pressed one paw to her thigh, shook his head sadly. "Mina, you know it's not your fault."

"I know that," she said softly, despairingly; it might have been to herself or to the cat. Still, her next words were obviously directed at them all as she said strongly: "It wasn't supposed to happen this way."

"…why can't you make the ginzuishou?" Ami asked quietly, her gaze caught by the nijizuishou that winked and blinked like brightly coloured eyes in the middle of their circle.

Mamoru's voice was flat, his first real contribution to the proceedings. "Because she's not the princess."

Minako sighed, and the look she gave him held an apology that the others only half-understood. "I thought you might be the first one to know."

"…she's not the princess?" Rei said, not quite struck dumb by the revelation. Something in her eyes suggested, however, that she wished she had been. "But then who is?"

Zoisite rolled his eyes, flopped back down on the futon. "Oh, for crying out loud, isn't it obvious? _Usagi_ is."

"…you're kidding," Rei whispered, although something in her frail voice said that she had realised it long before she could admit to knowing.

Mako whooped with sudden laughter, causing several of their company to look to her with surprise. "Oh, that's classic! Little klutzy Usagi, our princess! Right under our noses all this time! This is great!"

"Not so great considering where she is right now," Ami pointed out; of them all, she seemed to be taking the news with the most grace. "I agree with Rei-chan. We should go to her."

"Our princess needs us," Rei echoed, and turned her gaze to Minako. "Isn't that true?"

"Rei-san," said a quiet voice, and so surprised was she to be addressed by him that Rei looked to the cat without protest. "There is no need to be so cruel to Minako over this. Surely you realise that all she has done has been for the princess's safety. She has risked her own life and her own dreams to protect what Serenity's daughter wanted so much."

"What?" Rei asked, although she knew that was an answer she could have given to herself…if only she had the strength.

"Peace and happiness…on earth, if not in the Moon Kingdom," Minako said, and her smile was tremulous as she looked up at them all. "It was worth it. Every second of it."

"You're not the princess," Mamoru said, voice indiscernible as he watched her from across their circle.

She met his gaze evenly as she nodded, said the words. "No, I'm not."

The silence between them was long, and for a long uncomfortable moment the others did not know where to look themselves. Still, the smile that then crossed Mamoru's face was not really such a surprise. "But it's no wonder why you reminded me of her."

"Look, are we going to do this now or what?"

Mamoru turned from Minako to Zoisite, surprise in every long line of his body. "So you're in?"

He rolled his eyes skyward, the compress slipping to the floor as he threw his hands towards the ceiling in mock-frustration. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Wouldn't have thought it was your scene."

"What else do I have to do? Sit at home cataloguing my shoe collection?"

Mako, sensing an impending exchange that would lead nowhere if not to blows, leapt in to the conversation with an eager: "So when do we go?"

Ami's reply, however, was enough to stun them all to silence. "What's wrong with now?"

The henshin wands were promptly pulled from their wandspace, and a rose taken from an unseen pocket; in a few short seconds, the remaining senshi stood with their tuxedoed guardian and a man who looked like he couldn't decide whether he was glad he didn't have to do the same thing, or if he just felt left out.

"You will have to go without us," Artemis said as he and Luna came to stand before the line. He had not consulted with the black cat, but she stood easily at his side and nodded as he spoke.

"We can't come with you," she agreed, although there was something hollow and miserable in her dark eyes. "It will be dangerous, and we will only hold you back."

"But…there's so much we don't know!" Mercury said, looking for all the world like someone had just threatened to confiscate her little computer. "Luna, we need you!"

"I have the feeling that where you are going, all barriers to your knowledge will fall," Luna said.

"And so possibly, will you," the little white cat added darkly, not quite under his breath.

"We're coming back. All of us." Mercury's words were not quite harsh, but spoken with enough force to have Tuxedo Kamen raising one eyebrow and a small smile cross Mars's lovely features. Still, most of note was the pointed look she directed at Zoisite, the way her fingers curled like she was only just stopping them from reaching out to him. "We fell once, we won't do it again."

"Yeah, right on, Ami-chan!" Jupiter crowed; the camaraderie had her smacking her so hard on the back she fell forward into Zoisite, who promptly caught her against his chest. "Oops, sorry!"

"…sorry," Mercury echoed as she struggled to find first her feet and then her balance; she was near-breathless as she stepped back from the slender man.

"Whatever," he said, with a little flick of his wrist; even though he didn't look at her, she still felt a small tingle slip through her as he stepped to her side, and said: "Is this it, then?"

A few murmurings later – with garbled instructions from Artemis that Luna didn't seem much inclined to believe in, even interspersed as they were with Venus's assurances and Zoisite's observations – they stood in a ragged circle, hands joined.

"…does anyone really think this is going to work?" Jupiter asked dubiously; she swung the hands of Mars and Venus, and frowned. "Do we have to click out heels together, or what?"

Zoisite snorted; his own form was far more elegant than hers. He stood to perfect attention, hands joined tightly to Mercury on his left, Tuxedo Kamen on his right. "Of course it will – but only if, of course, everybody believes in fairies."

"So I have to clap my hands?"

"Zoisite!" Tuxedo Kamen said, exasperated. He might have said more, if Mercury hadn't chosen that moment to speak aloud.

"I can feel it, you know…the power," she said in the voice of a sleepwalker; to the surprise of those who looked to her, she seemed to be glowing with a faint blue aura that grew stronger every moment. "The power of all of us."

Mars nodded; even as the others looked to her, the aura about her strengthened, appeared scarlet. "…I do, too."

Tuxedo Kamen sighed, his own aura coming into view as he did as the white cat had advised and turned his mind towards the vague shining light of a girl he'd once known, a girl he wished to know again. "It's missing something, isn't it?"

"Yes," Zoisite said, voice as hollow as stones filled with nothing.

"But that's why we're going in," Mars said, and looked to the girl who had played princess to save her life.

"For the princess," Venus echoed, and when she smiled at Mars her aura flamed brilliant orange. Mars could not help but echo both gestures back to the blonde, her aura making her appear as a phoenix ready to die and be reborn as many times as it took to achieve her goals.

"…for the princess!"

**END CHAPTER NINE**


	10. Fault Lines

**Author's Notes: **…er, well. scratches head Fancy seeing me back here, eh? But…well, I have been struck with the urge to actually _do_ something with this tale of woe, so here we go.

I have to apologise if it sounds somewhat off, as it has been nearly a year since I updated it. With that said, if you actually enjoy what is here, please let me know! Although I have always (at least vaguely) intended to finish this sometime, what propelled me back into action was several reviews I have had over the past two months – and the last two days, at that. In fact, being the sad individual I am, subsisting entirely on the sustenance reviews can provide, I had a window open with the reviews displayed and every time I drifted away from this MSWord window, I looked to that and then got back down to work. So, really, it's all your own fault in the end.

But I hope it's a good kind of fault. Um.

**Ten:**

**Fault Lines**

"…holy _shit_!"

Startled, Usagi managed to upend an entire dish of odango with all the grace of an elephant in a glass store. "What? _What_?!"

"Your damn friends. They're _here_!" Jadeite had pushed himself to his feet with his first words, and was by now pacing about the room as erratically as a gangly-legged spider on LSD. "I don't…this makes all of this _very_ complicated."

Her legs felt the consistency of jelly as she stared at the man, and when she looked to her hands she found them trembling. "…why's that?"

Both gloved hands were pressed to his head as if it hurt, but there was now a strange rhythm entering his rapid movements. Still, when he stopped suddenly and turned to look directly at her, he nonetheless looked like he had one _bastard_ of a headache. "Look, can you do me a favour, and not transform into Sailor Moon until I ask you to?"

"…why?"

"Because it's harder for Beryl to trace you, if you're not Sailor Moon. Your spiritual signature's more clouded in civilian form, if you don't know what to look for…or can't look for." Jadeite sighed, and ran his hand through his hair until a good half of it stood on end. "Dammit! This just…I didn't expect them to do this, for crying out loud. Are they _nuts_?"

"But what's going on?" she wailed, shooting to her feet; the look he gave her was startled, but she just couldn't hold back the words that spilled forth from her knotted heart. "They're my _friends_! And if they are here, they're in _danger_! I think I should know what they're up against – especially if you expect me to help you out!"

"I'm trying to help _you_!" he shot back, and then his eyes widened again – this time in dismay. "Put that thing away!"

At first she genuinely had no idea what he meant – it wasn't until she looked downward in some curiosity that she found the object her hands were clenched about was the henshin locket. For a long moment she could do nothing but stare; the coloured jewels set in its border twinkled like the hearts of her distant friends. All she wanted was to help them, but…but…

_I have to help them, but…can I…I can't do it by myself. I need this man…I have to be stronger than this!_

Usagi slowly sank down to her knees, the locket in her lap. She closed her eyes tight, took a breath, and then looked up to the shitennou on whose grace she depended. "…so what's going on, then?"

Jadeite sighed again, and surprised her by flumphing down in front of her. "I gave your friends all of the nijizuishou," he admitted, and her eyes went very wide.

"What? They have the _ginzuishou_?"

He raised an ironic eyebrow, and nodded. "So you see, Usagi-san, why I need you to help me out. I don't know what you remember of what happened way back when, but the ginzuishou—"

"It kills the people who use it." The words were dull, and felt like sawdust in her mouth. "Are…are they going to use it? I have to go to them!"

"Stop." But his hand was gentle on her arm as she tried to stand, and stumbled. "Please, if you can't do anything else, just trust me."

Usagi swallowed with difficulty, and looked down again to the locket in her hands. Four colours…blue was Ami. Green was Mako. Red was Rei. Did that make yellow the absent Venus? They had never met, not yet, but still…she would be a friend, too, wouldn't she? …of course she would be! And then the centre…the moon…was that the princess, or was it herself…?

_But does it matter? She's the princess, and she…I have to protect her! And Mamoru-san…they deserve to be together, after all. They…they stood up for us all on the Moon, and if they can have the love they lost now…then it's all right, isn't it?_

When she looked up again, her eyes were swimming with tears. But even through them, she could see the deep sincerity of Jadeite's own as he reached forward and closed his hands over hers, over the locket.

"_Please_."

"I don't know if I can," And her simple honesty humbled him. "They…don't you understand? These are my _friends_. I can't…I can't just leave them. I…I don't remember much about it, you know."

"The Silver Millennium?" he asked gently, not moving his hands from where they rested over hers.

"Yeah." She sniffed deeply, completely without any elegance – but then with their hands as they were, she couldn't have blown her nose even if there had been a handkerchief to hand. "But you do? You really do?"

"Yes." The smile he gave her seemed accidental, like he hadn't intended to give it away so easily; but that, coupled with the odd faraway look that entered his eyes, made Usagi feel better. It…it made it feel _real_. Like the whole thing was more than just moments from someone else's story. "Sometimes I remember it more than I wish I did. Sometimes more than I deserve."

She felt the tension in his hands over hers, and whispered slowly: "What do you mean?"

"It was never _paradise_, Usagi-san," he said finally, with a wry smile that somehow reminded her a little of Zoisite. It had the same feel to it, reminding her of the time she had once gone into the attic to find the spare futon and instead opened a box of broken toys from her childhood…beloved things she'd forgotten she'd ever even had. "Don't let anyone ever try to tell you otherwise. But…it was pretty damned close some days."

"So why did you leave it?" she asked, even though she knew somewhere deep down that he couldn't really answer that in any way that she could understand. "Why did…why did _any_ of you leave it?"

"Zoisite doesn't remember, does he?"

She nodded, and tried to smile – and wondered why she couldn't. "He says he doesn't."

"Then he doesn't." His absolute certainty made Usagi frown, and he shook his head to see it. "Zoisite has always been one hell of a liar. I don't deny that. What I do deny, however, is the fact that he would be able to lie about such a thing to Endymion-sama's face."

"But you remember," she said slowly, and looked down again to where their hands rested over the locket.

"I remember," he said softly, and she wondered why he sounded so…so…_sad_…as he added: "You'll remember too, before this ends."

She pushed her chin up, looked him in the eye; she didn't quite intend to speak as she did, but the words were as simple and clear as the thousand facets of a diamond cut in the shape of a crescent moon. "Are you going to tell me I'm going to regret it?"

He didn't hide his own surprise at the strength of her words; after all, he remembered all too well the way she had been in the beginning – such a little girl, all long coltish legs and blonde hair…blue eyes bright with tears rather than the burning energy of the resurrected Princess of the Moon. "Don't you think you're going to?" he asked, curious.

"Yeah." Usagi sighed quite suddenly, and screwed up her nose; her eyes were again bright, but these tears were not those of a child. "I…I only ever wanted to be an ordinary girl. But sometimes an ordinary girl has to get up and fight, too. And I guess that's me. An ordinary girl who has to fight. Just this once."

It was so easy to wonder how he had never seen it before. "Anything but ordinary, Sailor Moon," he said, and took his hands away with a small shake of his head. How could she not _know_...? "So, do you trust me?"

"Rei-chan would yell at me," she said softly, but she was beginning to grin as she looked up, and nodded at him firmly. "But yeah. I do."

"Then we're going to help your friends." He pushed himself to his feet, and then offered her a hand. "But first, we need to wait. We need to see what Queen Beryl does before we do anything ourselves."

"But what…what if anything happens to them?" Her hands were tight about the locket again as she stated with absolute certainty: "I can't sit here and wait for that!"

"We'll go to them. As soon as anything goes wrong, I'll take you to them. I promise."

"Promise?" she asked, and then quite suddenly stuck out a firm hand. "Shake on it?"

He smiled, and took her hand. "I promise, Usagi-san. In the name of the Earth, I promise you that."

* * *

"You don't look so good."

Zoisite rolled his eyes at the tall senshi who was eying him with a wary curiosity most people usually reserved for sizing up injured rottweilers. "I don't _feel_ so good."

"You're not backing out on us now," Mars said abruptly, looking up from where she had been examining an ofuda with a depth of concentration that would have baffled Zoisite, if not for the fact he was concentrating harder on just not puking his guts up. "There's too much at stake."

"Who said I was backing out?" he said, aggrieved. "I love a good catfight. And there will be fur flying tonight, that's for sure." With that said, he rubbed at his eyes and cast a look around the rag-tag group. Although they had split somewhat to gather themselves after the disorientating slip though non-space, they were by now all staring at him alone. "I was healed by the moon-stick that still bears the residual energy of the ginzuishou, remember? This…oh, for crying out loud, _you_ of all people should know what it feels like."

"…you can feel it?" she asked, not bothering to mask any of the surprise she felt. She was bright and so _red_ in the darkness of the cavern they had materialised in, and she hurt his head almost as much as this place itself did.

"Even at my worst I wasn't exactly the devil, Sailor Mars," he muttered finally. He then wondered if he ought to have tried to sound insulted as he said that, but then realised he didn't care; he was more concerned about the insistent buzz at the back of his mind, the constant prickling sensation of dark energy over his skin. It wanted in, and…he could cope with it now, perhaps.

But then it was only weak, here.

"I…never said that."

He grinned, even though he'd never felt less like doing so. "I felt this…darkness…even when I wasn't….like this…but pain can be pleasure." He took a shuddering breath, and wondered how long he would be able to mask himself from the worst of the malignant darkness that seeped through this place like cancer. "And sometimes the difference isn't so important."

"When is it ever not important?" she asked, but it was a strangely uncertain demand from the fiery senshi.

"Duty, maybe." He coughed, and struggled to take another deep breath before speaking. "Love, definitely."

"…um, guys, sorry to interrupt, but…do you know where we are, Zoisite-san?"

Mercury's voice was unsure, but strangely comforting for all that. Zoisite blinked several times before answering, though the dim lighting of the cavern they had emerged in couldn't have hurt even the eyes of a new-born child. "…no…well, yes, but no."

Tuxedo Kamen's reply was the consistency of dry wall. "Hands up anyone who understood _that_ one."

"Oh, shove it," he replied, but there was a lack of venom to the words that left Tuxedo Kamen feeling strangely uneasy. "The Dark Kingdom isn't exactly a small Tokyo suburb, Endymion-sama. And it's not like I ever knew every damn corner of it anyway."

"But we focused on Usagi-chan," Mercury pointed out quietly, her gloved hands tight about her closed compact computer. "…surely…we centred on her? Somewhere near her?"

"Are you suicidal, Sailor Mercury?"

She reared back from the biting question, eyes wide. "What? No!"

"Well, neither am I," he replied caustically, and she blinked rapidly several times. It was that, more than anything else, which caused Tuxedo Kamen to open his mouth. Mercury was too…fond…by far, of his wayward guard, and by no means did that give him the right to make her cry.

"…and…?"

Predictably enough, Zoisite gave him a dirty look entirely unfitting of an exchange between prince and servant. "As long as _you_ weren't planning on going charging into the fray in order to get filleted by the bitch queen from hell, we should be a reasonable distance from all creatures that mean us harm."

"…it's the instinct of self-preservation?" Mercury said softly, and looked sideways at Zoisite like she expected him to bite her head off again.

"Correct," he said shortly, but she still smiled. Just a little.

"Yeah, well, but standing here protecting our own hides sure as hell ain't going to do anything for Usagi-chan!" Jupiter cracked her knuckles, and gave the others a sunny grin that only just hid the fact that the thick air of the dark cavern repulsed her as much as it did them all. "I dunno about the rest of you, but I'm ready to rumble!"

"We need to think about this," came the quiet voice of Sailor Venus.

"What's to think about?" asked Mars, and her voice was even as she pointed out to the grave blonde as she had done to Zoisite: "It's a bit late to be backing out of this now!"

"I would never do any such thing," she returned, in a quiet voice that nevertheless still

held the strength of gold-plated steel. "But Jupiter has a point – we need to know where we are first. We need to formulate some sort of a plan before we go charging in after the princess, otherwise…" Her voice faltered, then strengthened once more. "Otherwise, we'll be of no use to her. And that is not what I am here for."

"…maybe we should have planned better before we came in," Jupiter said, and looked down at her loosened hands with a different expression in her eyes than before.

"Forethought for the senshi?" Zoisite asked, amused. "Now _there's _a novel prospect."

Tuxedo Kamen's elbow was sharp into his gut, although he pulled the blow before it could really do any damage. "Maybe we could have, and maybe we even _should_ have. But our time is short no matter how you look at it, and…and I personally just want to make sure Usagi-san has time enough."

"Time enough?" Jupiter blinked at the man – she had to look up to do it, which was unusual for the Senshi of the Storm – and asked: "Time enough for _what_?"

"Everything." His words were simple, but held a strange light of their own even in the encroaching darkness of the outer Kingdom. "Everything she was put here for."

"…I guess Jadeite's as good a place to start as any."

"What?" Tuxedo Kamen asked, turning about at Zoisite's quiet, thoughtful words.

The only other male of the group, however, directed his reply at Sailor Venus. "Jadeite gave you the nijizuishou, yes?" When she nodded, he echoed the gesture; it was however uneasy. "I…there's something weird about him."

"Yeah, well, there would _have_ to be something weird about a guy who tries to run over girls with aeroplanes."

Zoisite's lips twitched upward into a not-quite-there smile, as if he couldn't admit that not only did Sailor Mars have a sense of humour, but also that it was one he could actually _appreciate_. "…and weirder still, I'll tell you. But let's lay off the tabloid fodder for a while—"

"Aw!" said Jupiter, who had been looking rather intrigued by the story.

"—and go for broke with the idea that Jadeite possibly knows what he is doing."

"What, like he had a full frontal lobotomy or something?"

Zoisite raised an eyebrow at Mars's phrasing, but he knew it wasn't as if she didn't have something like a point in there somewhere. "…something like that, yeah."

"…you're suggesting he knows what he is? Was? Er…should be?" Tuxedo Kamen resisted the urge to smack himself in the head, but he knew it wasn't really him; the tenses were all wrong because this _situation_ was all wrong.

"The past and possible never tense," Zoisite said, strangely amused. But when Mercury opened her mouth to ask what he meant by _that_, he waved a slender hand in dismissal of what was apparently a private joke. "Never mind. But yes, I think Jadeite remembers the Silver Millennium."

"Why?" Venus asked, although of them all she was the one who looked least surprised by his assertion.

"The two swords." Zoisite closed his eyes briefly, and wondered if the feel of the darkness pushing against his mind would only crush what little was left of his spirit if he went any further into his former realm. "He used them once, during a fight for the nijizuishou. I've…I don't think we could draw such weapons without remembering how we obtained them."

"Like your sword?" Jupiter asked slowly, and he nodded with a grimace of pain.

"Like mine, yes. They were given to us to protect the prince of Earth. Unless…if weren't acting in that capacity, they shouldn't come to us."

"Would Beryl know that?" Venus asked quietly, even as Tuxedo Kamen moved to ask the exact same question.

"Christ knows what _she_ knows," he muttered, unable to keep back any of the scorn that poured forth into his words at the thought of her. Still, that scorn all but faded as he moved on to the next ruler of this place. "But Metallia would."

Mercury shivered abruptly, as if back in their own world someone had just stumbled across her grave. "…could…could she hear us? Here?"

Zoisite shrugged, more careless in the gesture than he was in his mind. "Possibly."

"That's not exactly comforting!"

He snorted at that, and rubbed tiredly at his left temple; the constant pressure of dark energy against his fragile mind felt to him like listening to high frequency car alarms on loop. "Put it this way, Sailor Mars – Metallia isn't in any way human. She's not constrained by the limits of a mortal body – but she _is_ constrained by the limits of her immortal make-up."

"Meaning…?"

"Her consciousness exists in a giant chamber behind the grand audience chamber of Queen Beryl. She is within a cocoon that sustains her, and she cannot leave it in such a state as she is in." _And you all ought to be **damned** glad for that, too._ "But all creatures here are _of_ her. She can see through the eyes of any one of them, hear through them what echoes in her caves."

"We're not of her."

"No." And he looked Mars straight in the eye, and repeated her own hesitant words with icy assurance. "We're not."

"She can't hear us." Zoisite turned sharply at the words, to see that Sailor Venus was watching them both with a strange light in her pale eyes. "She might see us, but can't hear us."

"Why's that?" asked Mars, but Zoisite waved a hand at her to make her shut up. She bit her tongue with ill grace, because she could see that Zoisite was cocking his head, and frowning, and it was all for an actual _reason_.

"…now where did you learn how to do that?"

Mercury began to busy herself with her small computer while Venus smiled faintly. There was no real hint of happiness behind the gesture, however. "I was taught to do it, when Artemis told me that to protect the princess I would have to draw her enemies away by taking her name for a time. It…it guaranteed me some protection from the lie of it."

"But what are you _doing_?" Zoisite asked, looking up and around them even though it was all cold stone and heavy darkness.

"She's distorting sound. Muffling it." Mercury looked up from behind the visor, a strange expression in her eyes as she peered at her fellow senshi. "But I really don't see how."

"Neither do I!" she replied, and her laugh was high and girlish. Tuxedo Kamen's head shot around, and for the first time he saw something else in the peculiar, pale senshi who had played at being princess. There was an odd lightness of heart to the way she clapped her hands, and grinned at them all like a child who had finally mastered tying her own shoelaces. "But I can do it, and it works. It's also pretty cool, huh?"

"…so…where would Jadeite be?" Tuxedo Kamen asked awkwardly, looking away from Sailor Venus with some difficulty. He had never thought she could be…like…

_Perhaps it is not so strange she was chosen to pretend to be what Usagi really is, after all._

"…does he live around here?"

Venus nodded, and it seemed she had slipped back behind her mask again as her voice was even and her eyes calm as she asked: "Can you be sure he'll aid us? And that your theory is right?"

"You spoke to him, Sailor Venus. You'd know better than I would."

"…perhaps," she acknowledged, and frowned.

"Does anybody else have a plan?" Tuxedo Kamen asked, and looked around the pale faces of the four girls who had to save first their friend. And then the world. _…damn, have they **always** been this young? They're just **kids**, for crying out loud! _"Because failing that, Zoisite's is about all we've got."

"Your support is much appreciated," he thanked him dryly.

"And very grudgingly given, mind."

"Well, it wasn't like I wasn't ever your bloody tactician, was it?"

Tuxedo Kamen had to take a deep breath to steady himself – although such things were difficult in the oppressive atmosphere of Metallia's realm – and yet still snapped back: "Well, who the hell was, then?"

"Kunzite." And his flat reply would have stopped a bullet train in its tracks. It seemed hardly strange at all that it was Mercury, her words as careful as they were tentative, who broke the silence with a soft question of her own.

"…what did you do, then?"

"Made a lot of smart-ass remarks," he replied, though the words were more wry than irritated as he looked to the blue-skirted senshi.

"And tea, maybe?"

The snide look returned however, as he turned back to the man who had once been the prince of the earth – the man who was already regretting his words, and wondering why they just couldn't stop setting each other off. "Yeah, I was your little tea-boy, Endymion-sama. I went to all the finest schools and learned the master arts under all the greatest teachers of Terra _in order to serve the prince tea_." The sneer on his face turned strangely lighter, however, as he then added with odd relish: "And oh, was I ever _good_."

"…uh, are we like, planning to save Usagi-chan still?" asked Sailor Jupiter, looking between the two men as if wondering how long it would take her to physically subdue them both. And despite her next words, she certainly didn't appear to think the task beyond her. "Like, sometime _today_?"

She had a point, and Tuxedo Kamen did his very best not to skewer himself upon it as he looked to his former shitennou and said with all the grace he could muster: "…well. Lead on, MacDuff."

Zoisite snorted, and though he looked less than pleased Tuxedo Kamen knew damn well he could have taken that far worse. "Under the circumstances, Endymion-sama, I think we'd both prefer if I called you Duncan and not MacBeth."

"Malcolm." And he couldn't help but smile at the surprise that entered Zoisite's eyes. Surprise…and a strange flicker of something alien. Something foreign.

_Something a little like hope, perhaps?_

"…yeah." Zoisite's words were slow, but far lighter than they had been in what seemed a thousand years. "Yeah. All things considered, I think I'd prefer Malcolm, too."

Jupiter looked between the two, sensing the change in their air, and being nothing but bewildered by what had forced it. "…I don't get it."

It was Mercury who patted her shoulder, and grinned up at the taller girl when she looked around in surprise. "You don't need to, Mako-chan," she said with a grin, forgetting the senshi guise they all moved under. "Just know that the universe can never be set to rights unless the true king is in place."

"…er, so Mamoru's a king, now?"

Zoisite snorted again, but it seemed for once he was actually doing it as a form of genuine rather than sarcastic laughter. "Of a sort, I suppose so."

"But we're looking for the princess…?"

Tuxedo Kamen wondered why he was smiling so suddenly – and why he felt that, at least for now, he might just never stop. "So let's go find her!"

* * *

"How should we destroy them, do you think?" The smirk on her lips and the lazy play of long nails upon the arm of her throne, however, patently suggested that this was not a real question. "Slowly? Quickly?"

Kunzite stood before the dais of the dark queen with his pale head high, and voiced an opinion he knew was only rhetorical. "Perhaps we should separate the princess from the group before we attempt any frontal assault on her entourage."

The bloody lips curved, revealing a flash of ivory that tapered to a gleaming point. "Perhaps so," she acknowledged gracefully, and Kunzite felt an odd jolt. Her temper so often obscured her loveliness, yes, but it also masked the simple elegance that was so inherent to the long limbs and husky voice. Interloper and usurper though she might have always been, Beryl had always been born to be a queen.

"And the prince," she added lazily, suddenly; his attention narrowed to a point of its own in his surprise.

"…Highness?"

"We will not destroy the Prince of the Earth," she said softly, although her eyes were as steel. "He could prove…to be of much use."

"…I see," Kunzite replied, although he abruptly felt as if a brick wall had appeared. A brick wall that stood between him and the road before his feet that he had once seen so very clearly. The smile still upon her face, however, suggested that perhaps the road before _her_ was even clearer.

"The way to separate them will of course be through Zoisite – you have the promised control over him?"

Her tone indicated the negative answer would prove no answer at all. "Yes."

"Then call him." She waved a hand in dismissal, her opinion of her last king as obvious as the dark bloodstains that never came out of the marble underneath both their feet. "I don't care how you do it, but you are to call him back to this chamber, and with him he must bring both prince and princess. No other result will be tolerated. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, my Queen." And the words were bitter ash in his mouth even as he asked: "Do you wish for me to launch the attack upon the remaining senshi after the three have separated from the group, or would you see to it yourself?"

"Jadeite shall do it."

"_Jadeite_?" he repeated incredulously, quite unable to stop himself.

"He has proved himself to be of some use since his _pardon_," Beryl replied smoothly, her lips curving about the word. "Against all expectation, perhaps."

"I see," he repeated, for there was simply nothing else to say – and her amused smile only acknowledged how true she knew that to be.

"Dismissed, Kunzite," she said, and there was a peculiar note that seemed almost _gentle_ as she added with all the command of a true monarch: "Do your duty."

The pale king, highest of the shitennou under both prince and queen, then and now. looked to the stone in his hand. All he would need to do is push him. Plant a thought, encourage it to grow. Wind a thread about his mind, and just _pull_.

Kunzite pulled.

* * *

Zoisite stumbled.

"…hey, are you okay?"

"…yes." The word was muttered, almost hissed, but he clung to the offered arm of Sailor Jupiter with far more gratefulness than his tone implied. "_Shit_."

"What is it?" Tuxedo Kamen asked, although with less impatience than usual. The odd tone in Zoisite's voice left little room for their usual banter. "Zoisite?"

"Headache." He grimaced, and dug his long fingers into the hair at his temple as if trying to pull the dull ache from it with only his perfectly-groomed nails. "It…you feel it?"

"The heaviness of this place?" He nodded with only a little impatience, and resisted the urge to press at his own temple. "Of course. But it's not making me trip over my own two feet."

"Weird, considering those penguin shoes you're in."

The taller man snorted, and rolled his eyes skyward; they couldn't be seen behind the white mask, but everyone could _feel _him do it. They'd been around the pair of them long enough to know, after all. "You must be fine if you can mock my dress sense."

"A thrice-dead corpse would still have life enough to mock your fashion sense," Zoisite flipped back. His light words, however, didn't stop him from grimacing again. Nor from dropping Jupiter's arm to clench both of his hands upon his chest, above his heart.

"…Zoisite-san, I don't like this." Mercury swiftly came to his side, pressing him to sit down on the cold, damp rock of the floor even as she took off one glove. With this done, the other senshi as well as Tuxedo Kamen coming to stand loosely about them both, Mercury pressed her bare fingers to his forehead before he could even think to protest. "You're…cold. Not burning up, just…cold."

"Very cold," he said, and grimaced – whether from the cold itself or just the admission, he wasn't sure. "…I've never been this cold."

"Why's he cold?" Jupiter asked, and peered down at herself with some curiosity. "I mean, it's…this place is awful. But I don't feel cold, and look what _I'm_ wearing!"

"This place is doing something to Zoisite," Tuxedo Kamen said slowly, and then looked to where Mars stood beside Venus. "How are the rest of you girls feeling?"

"The vibes this place gives off would make a mass murderer sick," Mars said bluntly. "But I can block my mind against it. It's…it's there, but not really. Do you know what I mean?"

"I know." Venus's voice was very low, but that odd smile of before – a smile that belonged on a girl whose greatest worry was someone nixing her high score on the racing game at the arcade, not saving the whole wide world – was obvious again about both lips and eyes. "A shield. Thoughts to place between our hearts and this place. Memories."

_Usagi_. Her smiling face was forefront in his mind even as he knelt quickly down, and said urgently: "Zoisite."

He had his eyes closed again, even as Mercury tapped away at her keyboard with the force of a hurricane. "What?"

"What did you think of the princess?"

That got his attention; his eyes were dark as he opened them, but surprising clear for all that. "What?"

"Do you remember what you thought of her?"

"I…no. No, I don't." One slim hand came up again to rub at his clammy forehead, and his eyes creased in both thought and in pain now. "I…remember her. But you know as well as I do that the memories I have are as fragmented as yours."

"But she's what I hold between myself and this place." He swallowed, and his voice was thick and vulnerable as he added softly, looking about the group: "And I think…it's the same for you."

The nods from the girls were quiet, but no less strong for their reverent silence.

"But…you…" His voice trailed off, and he, not for the first time, wished like hell he could have his memories of that time back the way they had been.

It was Mercury who spoke next, however. "You have to hold _something_, Zoisite-san," she said to him softly, and when he gave her an odd look, she smiled sadly. "Something beautiful. Something pure."

"Your princess?" His bitter tone made Venus frown, but Mercury did not see it, and nor did Tuxedo Kamen – their attention was focused entirely upon the fragile creature on the floor before them.

"Whatever makes you happy," Mercury told him, and without asking permission took his hand into hers, and squeezed it tight.

He grimaced again, but nodded; his eyes drifted down to where Mercury still held his hand, and he noted it was the bare one she had used to take his temperature. Slowly he wrapped his own fingers about it, and looked up to her. "I…I can try."

"Please." A faint blush was beginning to creep up her neck, but she smiled at him as she made to stand. "Can we go?"

"We can go," he said softly, and didn't let her hand go until they both stood again.

"But what do we do when we find her?" Jupiter asked, and when the others looked to her, she shrugged. "Usagi-chan, I mean. It's…we're here now. It's not like we can just leave again." There was not a shred of cowardice in her voice, however; it was merely curiosity. The strength of determination in her was as solid as oak, and just as long-lived.

"We won't leave," Mars said, her voice as unwavering as the path of a volcanic river.

"She needs to form the ginzuishou." Sailor Venus rubbed her own head, and then shook it. "We give her the crystals, and she forms it."

"And then what?" Jupiter asked.

"We go to Beryl." Venus was looking to the passage that was their next route as she spoke the first words, but when she spoke the last she looked to them all, and was as calm as empty deep space. "And then we kill her."

"Venus!"

"There's no other way, Mercury," she said, and even though those pale eyes were as cold as that same deep dark space, there was a tremor in her voice that was not quite faint enough to miss. "If we don't stop her now, there won't be any world to save."

"But…" Standing as close as she was to Zoisite, he could feel her begin to tremble like the last autumn leaf in the first storm of winter even before he saw it. "We can't…we…we can't just _kill _someone!"

"What did you think we were going to do?" he asked, and when Mercury looked to him he was startled by the betrayal he saw in those dark eyes. "This is a war, Mercury-san. If we don't win we lose, and that's the whole truth of it."

"…I…" Her voice was weak, but the knuckles of her hand were white where they clung to her computer like a lifeline. "I thought…maybe…we'd seal her powers away. Or something."

"Or something?" And he was more gentle than he knew he was capable of as he said: "You don't have a plan there in your little computer?"

"Not a plan to kill her!" she burst out, and turned to the other girls with a white face and a high, trembling voice. "I didn't come here for that!"

Venus shook her head, the long blonde hair shimmering silver-gold even in the dim light of the Dark Kingdom. "You came here to serve your princess, and that is what you will do."

"But…but…not _that_!" she said in that same strange, broken voice – and then she turned, and staggered away with her hands over her mouth. The sobs she tried to stifle, however, were as loud as screams in the heavy silence that had fallen over them all.

Venus immediately made to move after her, but a strong hand latched about her arm. "Let me."

"What?" she asked, turning to look at Zoisite with something between irritation, surprise, and reluctance. He couldn't understand why _he _shouldn't be the one to have the right to surprise, given that as things stood he'd known the blue senshi longer than she had, but…

_But then, she **was** their leader in times past. Hardly strange that she'd be the same now, no matter how times have changed._

And though he knew he would still appear ghastly pale to the senshi, he put everything he had into his voice and made it strong. "Trust me."

"Let him."

She turned at the quiet voice, and stared at Tuxedo Kamen with her mouth open. "What?"

"We'll be right over there," Zoisite said, and quickly stumbled over to where the blue-haired senshi had gone. It was hardly far – it wasn't like they could (or would) separate far, not in this place – but he still felt strangely isolated as he came up behind her, and said softly: "Ami-san?"

"I'm sorry." And her voice was muffled, the fact she was crying not a bit hidden even though she had her back to him.

"You don't have to apologise to me."

That had her turning to him, her eyes both surprised and miserable as she looked over his shoulder to where the others stood. Although they were doing their best to not stare at her, they were desperately bad at it; she did have to wonder how much of it was concern for her, and how much concern that Zoisite might do something stupid. "Are they…are they angry with me?"

"No." And he sank down to the floor, nodding at the space beside himself as he did so. "They just sent me because they're sick of me."

"They're not." But as she came down to settle on the cold, damp floor at his side – she grimaced at the feel of it against her bare skin – she said slowly. "…er…are they?"

His laugh was self-depreciating, but still rather easy for all that. "Of course not. How _could_ they be?"

She could have played along with him at that, but he found he admired her all the more when she did not…when she chose to tackle head on what she thought she could not. "…you must think I'm such a little girl," she said slowly, quietly; she drew up her knees and rested her arms and chin upon them. When she tilted her head to look to him, her eyes were sheened with tears both shed and not. "I mean…you were one of Prince Endymion's Guardians, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"You were a real solider." She looked away from him then, and to where the others stood in a ragged group. Mars and Jupiter now seemed deep in hurried conversation, while Venus and Tuxedo Kamen stood beside each other in what seemed the uneasy silence of former lovers. "And yet here I am. I can't even…I can't even do what is necessary to protect my princess!"

"Being able to kill a person doesn't make you a soldier, Ami-san." His hand was cold but still strong as he rested it on her shoulder. And the words that came out of his mouth…they were as strange as this situation. They weren't his, they were someone else's…and that vague memory felt as familiar as did the rest of his hand against her. "Knowing what it is you strive to protect – _that's_ what makes you a soldier."

She swallowed back what felt like an ocean of tears, and still stared out into the dark caves. "I'm not strong enough, like Mako-chan. I'm not brave enough, like Rei-chan. And I'm not…I'm not _devoted_, like Minako-san." She turned to him again, and threw out one hand in frustrated temper. "I mean, look what she did for Usagi-chan! She…she risked her life every day she was Sailor V. She fought alone, _and_ she pretended to be the princess…all for Usagi-chan!" And the tears returned now, although they were silent rivers that trickled silently from her eyes now. "And I can't even do this."

"You're defined by different things, you know," he said, and shook his head. One hand raised as if to wipe the tears away, but it fell back to his side before she could even see it had moved. "You forgot that Mizuno Ami is the most selfless and generous friend Tsukino Usagi could hope for."

"You don't mean that."

"Oh, don't get me started, Ami-san," he said, irritable even as he twisted a smile at her. "You know I'll bitch at the drop of a hat – particularly if said hat is Endymion-sama's and is dropping because I ripped the bloody thing off his head – but I don't make stuff like that up."

"Thank you." She was still trembling, as she placed one hand on his arm, but it seemed…different somehow. And her tears had stopped. "…he was lucky to have you, I think."

"What?"

"The prince," she said softly as she leaned closer to him, as if she had a secret to drop into his ear. "He was, I think."

"What, until I turned on him like a rabid dog?"

"I think it's more complicated than that," she replied with a frown, like she knew his belligerence was played out just so he could try to ignore the strange sensation of her hand still on his arm, the oddity of having her lean so closely towards him. "I remember you, I think. Walking in the silver-mirror gardens of the palace with roses in your arms and the captain of the prince's guard at your side."

He jolted, as if her fingers had forced a massive electrical current straight through his arm and straight to his heart. "_What_?"

"I can see it. In my head." And those eyes were so far away even as she leaned closer, and whispered: "You came to the Moon with him, didn't you? All four of you?"

"…I don't remember," he said, though as she began to smile he knew that that just wasn't true.

"But…I can see it." And yes, she was so far away now, far away from here and him and back in that place that they had all left behind them so many years ago. "You were so beautiful, then."

"So were you," he said, and he simply couldn't help himself. The eyes that dreamed while awake were hardly the eyes of a child now; there was something of the adult she had been there now, and he knew he spoke the truth even though he didn't remember it as he told her: "You were as much a soldier as I was."

"…Zoisite-san," she said softly, and then she blinked; she was before him now, this woman-as-a-child as she smiled and nodded, all tears forgotten. "I know what I have to do, now. What _we_ have to do. We have to do this. We have to save her. _Them_. And we can, I know it."

He closed his eyes, but he could still feel her there. Still feel her by his side, her hand upon his arm, her smile upon her lips. "…I remember those gardens. Silver roses, all with shimmering petals just like hundreds of mirrors of moonlight. …_her_ light."

"You remember?" she asked softly.

"I remember _him_," he said, and felt a frown tilt his own lips downward. "Beside me. Always beside me."

"Zoisite?" And still she leaned closer; he could now feel her breath upon his cheek, and the gentle touch of three fingers upon his forehead. "Are you all right?"

"…Ami-san…" he whispered, and the images in his mind wavered like warping mirrors. They were silver, the roses, but then so was he, and then the silver… "…Ami…"

"…what are you…" And she barely stifled a shriek as he suddenly clamped on to her like he was drowning; his fingers dug into her skin like knives into butter. "Zoisite-san," she hissed through her teeth even as she pulled back, and then said desperately: "You…you're hurting me!"

"…Ami…san…" he whispered, and then only held tighter. The look in his eyes had darkened, like he was hearing something she couldn't…something that was trying to pull him away from where he held onto her so tightly. "Oh God, it's…there's something…"

"Let go!" she shrieked, as she felt his nails break through her skin. "Zoisite-san, stop it!"

"What the hell's going on here?!"

His hands fell from her arms even as the other man reached forward to wrench them away; as she fell backward he looked up blindly at the other man, face contorted in agony. "Endymion-sama," he gasped, and clutched again at his chest. "Endymion-sama, I…I can feel her."

"What?" he asked urgently, even as something inside him warned darkly that Zoisite's colour and obvious pain could not signal anything good, despite his words.

"She's close." He sat up straighter with some difficulty, and then looked to both the horrified Mercury and then to the other senshi as they gathered hurriedly around them. "It's the princess. I can feel her."

"What do you mean?" Mars asked, an ofuda held to attention in her hand though she seemed unaware of the fact.

"The light," he said, and then he coughed again; his breathing was ragged as he looked up at them all and demanded with an unsteady voice that rose and fell like the spring tides: "Can't you feel the light?"

"How do we get to her?" demanded Tuxedo Kamen -- and even though he took in once again Zoisite's ugly colour and trembling body, all he could see before him now was the bright grin Usagi gave away so easily to anyone who asked.

"Carefully," he whispered, and then reached out towards him and one other. "Venus. Come…come here." He grimaced again, and gasped before speaking. "I need you both here for this."

"What do you mean?" she asked softly, but she stepped forward with the grace that had had them all believing she was Princess of the Moon and no-one else.

"The captain of her senshi and her prince." So blindly he reached for their hands; without quite realising they were doing it, they both reached back. For all that he looked like death warmed over, his grip was strong enough for them to see why Mercury now stood some uneasy distance from them all. "I need you to call her to us."

"…what?" Tuxedo Kamen asked, dumbly.

"I can call her to us, through you." Zoisite looked up again, and though his skin was still dirty parchment, his eyes had returned to some semblance of their normal snarky selves – along with his voice. "Transport her. Pull her through the little spaces inbetween."

"…and you just realised this now?" he asked, completely unable to hold back the irritation he felt – and completely not caring about it, either.

"I can't do it in this form." He was impatient now, and yes, this was indeed the Zoisite he remembered all too well from the last few weeks. Bold, sarcastic, and so bloody _annoying_. "At least, I shouldn't be able to. But…the moon-stick wasn't all that entirely successful, remember? And now that I am back here, back in this place, and she is so _close_…I can do it."

Mars's eyes widened, and she said, so slowly: "You…"

"I can still do some of what I did here." Zoisite sat up slightly straighter, with his hands still firmly clamped about those of his two experiment-buddies. "That's why I feel so ill. My body remembers this place, and it wants…" He swallowed dryly, and for the first time a real note of unease entered his voice. "It wants to do it all again."

"Would it be safe?" That was Mars again, and her voice was so strongly uncertain as she spoke. "Could you control it?"

"What do you think?" he asked snippily, although he knew that wouldn't exactly make him any friends on Mars.

"I think he could." Her voice was soft and yet strong; when Zoisite looked up, he saw Mercury was watching him through hooded eyes, her bare fingers wrapped around each other like macramé.

Mars nodded, and her ofuda lowered.

"…Mars?"

"If Mercury believes, it is enough for me," she said, and nodded at Venus with all the great dignity she usually reserved for the undertaking of her miko duties. "I trust him."

"But do you trust yourself?" Venus asked, but she wasn't looking at Mars anymore. Her pale blue eyes – oh, so very pale and blue, like ice! – fixed upon Zoisite's, and she did not smile. "Do you, Zoisite?"

"My prince is here beside me," he said, the words spilling from his lips before he even knew exactly what they were. "I am here for him."

She smiled, and he realised for the first time that she still had the hands of a child as she curled her own fingers more tightly around his. "Then we'll do it."

* * *

The crystal was so warm now in Kunzite's hand, and he felt the bright bolt of heat as he sent the urgent thought again.

_Come to me, Zoisite…come back to me._

* * *

"Do you think this will really work?" Mars asked finally; though she was standing some three feet distant from the group of three, she watched them with a closeness that assured all that she could whip out her wards and ofuda very swiftly should the need arise.

"…I don't think we'll get to Jadeite this way." Zoisite's voice was hollow, and there were lines of pain scribbled untidily over his pale face. Tuxedo Kamen, on the other man's left with his hand clammily held still, noted uneasily the fine sheen that had broken out over the delicate skin. "It's…it's getting darker. Beryl knows we're here."

Mercury started, and looked into the darkness behind them with real fear. "How do you know that?"

"The youma are getting closer."

"_Youma_?" Jupiter's spine stiffened, and her hands reflexively tightened into fists. "Where…where are they?"

"Why don't they just…appear?" Mars's voice was clear, but there was a definite strain to the words as her own hands began to move slowly in the pattern of one of her wards. "Like they do on earth?"

"Different strokes for different folks." Zoisite tried to smile at the puzzled look Mercury gave him, but instead dissolved into a fit of coughing. "They…they draw on the energy from those around them for things like that. While Metallia can afford to give them enough for the initial push out of this dimension, she won't do it continuously for them in this place. Drains her energy too much. On earth it's a non-issue because they use peripheral human energy for little tricks like that."

"Where will you get your energy, then?" Mercury asked; Zoisite in this state looked as if he wouldn't have the energy to flap the light gossamer wings of a butterfly.

"I don't know," he said, frustrated; there was force in his words, but she held herself upright. Yes, he had frightened her earlier, and frightened her badly. But before he had held on to her, before he had gone somewhere she couldn't reach, she…she had seen him. Seen him as he was.

And had known what he could be now.

"Your body could just be rejecting the energy of this place," she said softly, unable to keep back the smile that came to her lips as she realised the likely truth of it. "You can't use it, because it's…it's not you, anymore."

"I think…I think maybe you're right." Zoisite tightened his grip on the hands of both Venus and Kamen, and closed his eyes as tightly as he could. It had hardly seemed possible a moment ago, but he actually become _more_ pale in the process. "It's like…there's a lock, or a door, or a gate or something. Between me and the matrix of the spell." He bit his bloodless lip, and hissed.

"…what does that mean?" Jupiter asked, looking to Zoisite, and then back and forth between Mars and Mercury, as if she couldn't decide who would be a better authority on such things.

"I can't…follow through." Zoisite grimaced again, and groaned. "My mind…can't respond."

"Would it help if I tried to add my power?" Venus asked quietly, tightening her grip about his hand even though it was obvious to all watching that Zoisite had to be all but crushing her hand in return. "If Tuxedo Kamen did?"

"No, I don't…you're too bright." He opened his eyes, and the look in them was both hunted and desperate. "It's dark magic, _black_ magic."

"…but you just need energy, don't you?" Mars asked, and looked to Mercury for another answer; the blue-haired senshi, however, was caught between staring at her computer screen and at the struggling shitennou before her.

"I…no, it's…I think whatever Sailor Moon did to me changed me too much." Zoisite sighed, and then held up both hands with arms that could barely support their own weight. "I can't bridge the gap," he said dully, letting them all fall back down again.

It was Tuxedo Kamen who spoke at last, his words strained as he looked to where he still held the other man's. "Then maybe you shouldn't be trying."

"Maybe we shouldn't," Venus agreed quietly, and carefully extracted her hand from his. "Let's just…try another way."

Zoisite looked to them both with blurry eyes, and shook his head with sudden force. "No, it's not…I think…"

"What?" asked Tuxedo Kamen, although he took his own hand back at rubbed at it; Zoisite had been as cold as ice, and that had seemed to bleed through to him. Why on earth had he been so cold—

And then Zoisite screamed; his hands shot to his head and clenched about his temples with enough force to almost break the skin.

"_Get out of my head!_"

"What the hell?" And then he shouted as Zoisite's hand shot out like clamps; Venus's echoed gasp told him clearly that he had got a hold of her just as well as he'd gotten a hold of his former master. "Zoisite, let go of me! _Right now_!"

"I'm going back to him." And his eyes and voice were as wild as the sea as he turned a strange, burning smile upon the man who had been Prince of the Earth. Tuxedo Kamen's blood ran cold as he saw the desperate, merry triumph in those green eyes as he shouted to the dull stone ceiling above them all: "I'm going back to _him_!"

"Mars!" Venus's voice rose above his laughter, the unmistakable tone of command and power. "The ofuda!"

But she needn't have asked; Mars had leapt forward the second she had felt the darkness that had clustered about Zoisite from the moment he had arrived finally begin to seep back inside of him. With a shout and a flash of light, even in this dark place she called the bright blazing fire of her patron down to her. It ran through her blood, like a thousand burning rivers of pure power; it was so easy to pull it forth, and shower the whole cavern with the force of Mars.

But it wasn't right; there was another light here, but…no. It wasn't _light_. It was _dark_, and it was seeping into _her_ now, covering her flame until it was only embers, only ash, and then…and then…

"Mars!"

She didn't know who called her name, but she couldn't hold the fire; it blinked out, plunging everything into darkness. Everything but the strange burning blue light about the oblivious Zoisite and his two helpless victims.

"It's…I…" She tried to step forward, and staggered under the weight of the darkness that poured forth from the slender man. "I…I can't…!"

"Oh, hell," muttered Jupiter, and then there was a thump, a scream…and then silence.

Ordinary light – at least, light as was ordinary in this place – was slowly returning as Tuxedo Kamen tried to sit up; his hand was burningly cold where Zoisite had gripped him in his crazed spell, but otherwise he felt relatively in one piece.

Or at least he would have, if some idiot hadn't just fallen on top of him. "Get off me!"

"…aw, I'm sorry! Did I…_Mamoru-san_?!"

He looked up with complete and utter disbelief into two very confused, very blue, very _welcome_ eyes. "…_Usagi_?!"

And as all save one descended upon the girl, Zoisite lay alone and unmoving upon the cold damp stones.

* * *

"Where is the girl?"

Jadeite looked up from where he lounged in his chair to the tall figure of the shitennou recently burst into his chambers. "She's not here, obviously," he said comfortably, seemingly not at all taken aback by the man's entrance – nor by his blazing silver demeanour.

"What have you done?" the white-haired man growled as he stalked forward; without thought he took Jadeite by his lapels and dragged him upward and to his feet. Most men should have been trembling to be under the furious gaze of a thwarted shitennou of ice; Jadeite, however, seemed scarcely aware of the circumstances of their conversation.

"What have _you_ done?" he asked quite simply, not making any effort whatsoever to break free from Kunzite's grip. "I think you've broken Zoisite's mind."

"_What have you done with Sailor Moon_?"

Jadeite patiently waited for Kunzite to finish shaking him before speaking. "She got away from me," he said, and when Kunzite's pale eyes blazed silver, he couldn't help but say with an ironic grin: "I'm an incompetent, remember?"

In disgust, Kunzite opened his fists and simply let the other man fall. "The Queen will have your head for this."

Jadeite got back to his feet in his own sweet time, as if he'd merely tripped over his own two feet. "Been there, done that, didn't get the t-shirt. Still regret that part, actually. Ouch," he said, rubbing absently at his hip. "I regret nothing else, though."

Kunzite felt as if his world was turning itself but upside down and inside out as he stared incredulously at the man who had not only lost him the princess and her prince, but also the only creature he had actually wanted to capture within the webs of this dark place. Without even really thinking about what he intended to do, he closed his right hand tightly about the other's arm and started walking. "You are coming with me."

"Where are we going? The zoo?" Jadeite seemed not at all bothered by the punishing pace Kunzite chose to set, all but dragging his feet as they moved from his sparse chambers. "Didn't realise we had one here, actually."

"Shut up."

"Why? Do I remind you of someone?"

"When the Queen realises what you have done—"

"You did it, you know," he interrupted, and didn't stop even when Kunzite halted to turn the coldest of his glares upon him. In fact, the idiot just chose to _continue_. "You told Zoisite to fake the spell. Hardly _my_ fault if you let him work it properly."

"…then the girl is—"

Jadeite shrugged. "Having a good old meet-up with her friends right now, I'd assume," he mused, and then he actually _smiled_. "Wonder if they're all going to go out for chocolate milkshakes afterwards?"

* * *

The hands of her friends were as warm against her skin as their tears. "What happened?" she asked dazedly, in the hopes it would make some sense of the babble of their desperate, happy voices. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to work…at least, not until Tuxedo Kamen knelt down before her and smiled.

…_oh, why did he have to be so perfect? And so somebody else's…?_

"The spell worked," he said softly, as the girls quietened down. However, their hands did not leave her. She'd never known before now that you could hold the hands of four people simultaneously, although she had to admit she actually wasn't too sure how she was doing it right now. "Or didn't work, depending on your perspective."

"What spell?" she asked, and then looked about her with increasingly wild eyes. "…and…where are we? And what…oh my god, what is wrong with Zoisite-san?"

The girls wouldn't let her stand to go to him, and Mercury's voice trembled as she spoke. "He told us he was going to work a spell to bring you to us." She paused to take a deep breath, and added hoarsely: "But I think it was actually to take Venus and Tuxedo Kamen away."

Usagi's eyes widened, and she stared at the still silent form with nothing remotely approaching comprehension. "But…why?"

"I don't know," she said, and she used her free hand to wipe away what Usagi abruptly realised were tears. "But…I think…"

"We should leave him here."

"Tuxedo Kamen-sama!" Usagi gasped.

"He's knocked out. Jupiter got him hard." That was Venus, and the girl ignored the startled look on Usagi's face as she suddenly realised that Sailor V now looked completely different. Her former fuku of blue and red, so different in style to that of the rest of them, was now orange and just…just like…

…_what is going on here? She's the princess, and—_

"Forget him for a second – we need you to do something, Usagi-san," the other blonde was saying urgently, even as Usagi's mind started to rebel against every little thing that was going on around her. "Right now."

"What?" she asked, stupidly; the faces around her seemed to blur as she realised that she was still in her civilian form, and they were all senshi. All but her.

And then Sailor V – but not Sailor V – poured a crystal river into her hands.

"You have to do it." And the other girl closed Usagi's shaking hands around the crystals, and held them tight. "Please, Usagi-chan! Do it!"

"…do what?" she asked, her voice high-pitched and alien even to her own ears.

"Make it," came another voice, this one deep and somehow…somehow…

…_Tuxedo Kamen-sama, I always loved you, but…I can't…she's the princess…_

His eyes were as blue as the sky of earth, of her home of this life; his voice was the echo of a thousand years lost as he commanded her so gently: "Call it back together."

"The crystal, Usagi-san." That was the princess again, her blonde hair the shimmering tendrils of the sun as she nodded. Her blue eyes were filling rapidly with tears as she added so softly: "The silver crystal of your mother, her mother before her…and her mother before her."

Usagi felt like the whole world had abruptly exploded. And she was surprised at how quiet it had been…how quiet it still was now. "But…_you_…"

"I pretended." She was smiling even as her tears spilled down her cheeks, even as she clenched their hands together so strongly about the crystals that Usagi felt a facet of one break her skin, felt the blood begin to well in the cut it left behind. "You are the one, Usagi-san."

"…no," she said, and turned from the princess – but not the princess – to see only Tuxedo Kamen smiling at her. Only Mamoru-san. "No, I'm not!"

"You are," he whispered, and she had to look away again.

"…no, you are," she said, blindly staring at the other blonde. "_You're_ the princess. I protect _you_…don't I?"

The other girl still made no effort to brush her tears away as she looked to the still body of Zoisite, and drew a deep breath. "It heals, Usagi-san. And that's what you want to do, isn't it? That's what you _are_."

And Usagi could do nothing but burst into tears.

"Usagi!" And they all gathered around her, her…her _senshi_…_her_ senshi; blinded by her tears she still felt them as they moved in closer to her; and there they remained with foreheads pressed together, and pressed to hers.

"Will you do it?" Sailor Venus whispered, and the others echoed her question.

"Please, Usagi."

Bewildered, Usagi looked first to the crystals in her hands, and then up at Mamoru with absolutely no comprehension at all. "…can't I at least have something to eat, first?"

**END CHAPTER TEN**


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